Peers with special needs and students’ noncognitive performance: Evidence from China

Abstract

In the ongoing debate regarding the role of inclusive education, the existing literature has paid insufficient attention to the externalities of students with special needs in general classrooms. This study investigates the impact of special needs peers on the regular student’s noncognitive performance. We use a nationally representative survey of first-grade students in China’s junior high schools and exploit variations in the proportion of special needs students across randomly assigned classrooms. Our results indicate that the presence of special needs students in the general classroom does not influence the regular student’s negative emotion, general satisfaction, and social acclimation. The findings are consistent with various robustness checks for estimation strategies, sample compositions, and heterogeneous analyses. Our study provides important insights into the skill formation of regular students in inclusive settings where general schools have relatively strict admission standards for special needs students in regular classrooms.