Inclusion in education: Its bonds and bridges

Social capital is one of the core concepts in the studies of education. This concept is broadly used in relation to inclusion. At the same time, the analysis of social capital of parents of children enrolled in mainstream schools in post-socialist countries is still missing in the literature. Based on a survey carried out in Russian mainstream schools in 2020 – 2021 by means of regression analysis with interaction terms and principal component analysis, we attempt to fill in this gap by examining and comparing social capital types among the parents of children with and without special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). On the one hand, the parents of a child with SEND have limited access to social capital resources. On the other hand, the level of structural social capital is higher for this group of parents as compared with those who have a child without SEND. This indicates that parents of children with SEND seek to interact with other parents more often than parents of children without SEND and are more actively involved in activities of public organizations and associations. When school policies prove to be more accessible and inclusive, parents of children with SEND decrease their bonding and increase bridging ties. This study outlines the main challenges of acquiring the social capital in post-socialist cultural and political context and formulates recommendations on how to facilitate social capital of families of children with SEND.