Mapping the Social Structure of a Class: a Practical Instrument for Assessing Some Effects of Mainstreaming

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Abstract
As legislation designed to protect the rights of handicapped and minority groups through mainstreaming comes into force, questions arise as to what actually happens to mainstreamed children in the classroom. Two types of achievement are posited: social and educational; but the dearth of instrumentation to measure social achievement and the relative simplicity of measuring educational achievement has led to an unbalanced emphasis on the latter. Sociometric choices mapped through Smallest Space Analysis generate maps that depart radically from traditional target sociograms and provide new bases for assessing social achievement. Examples are presented on the use of the technique in assessing these mainstreaming effects in the classroom in Israel and in California.