System Supports

Despite many strategies for overcoming barriers to peer acceptance and a solid implementation plan, the chance of achieving peer acceptance is low if system supports are not in place to provide pre-requisite training, technology resources and quality social and emotional learning curricula.

  • Building collaborative partnership with families of students and with community organizations that students participate in outside of school is important to help students generalize these strategies outside of school so they can extend the inclusive classroom to an inclusive community (Gross, 2015).

  • School-based social emotional learning programs increase a child's level of social competence enhance children's peer acceptance (McKown, 2009)

  • Digital technology resources facilitate the social integration of diverse student populations (Manzoor & Vimarlund, 2018)

  • Offer service learning projects (Ribera et al., 2017)

  • Use team based instruction that offers students roles of greater ownership of their learning (Ribera et al., 2017)

  • Relieving teachers of large class and course load responsibilities so that they may work on projects with students of all levels (Ribera et al., 2017)

  • Advising students to not only participate in co-curricular activities but also to take on leadership roles (Ribera et al., 2017)

  • Establish overall school environments grounded in culturally responsive pedagogy (DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2010)

  • Implement embedded peer support programs for historically underrepresented students to improve students’ self-efficacy, help develop a sense of belonging and foster persistence in higher education (Tucker et al., 2020)

  • Provide repositories for teachers to record and retrieve information about students’ skills and background knowledge as related to the standards (Kieran & Anderson, 2018).

  • Establish multiple methods of communication between school leadership and teachers, between teachers and students, and between schoolwide personnel and caregivers (Minke, Sheridan, Kim, Ryoo, & Koziol, 2014).