Although freedom of parental school choice has expanded to the Finnish
education system, the government has maintained the principle of
neighbourhood school allocation. Moreover, the Finnish education system
has recently undergone a reform of its special needs education;
all pupils are entitled to receive support in three categories of
general, intensified or special. The focus of this article is to examine
parental positions on school choices in relation to the parents’ social
class and their children’s support needs in basic education. The
results of the study are based on a quantitative questionnaire, which
collected responses from 208 participants drawn primarily from four
different municipalities in Finland. The study found that the category
of a child’s support, rather than the socio-economic class of the
parents, determined the child’s school allocations. Furthermore, the
more support the parents felt their children needed, the more importance
they placed on special education practices and less on the
neighbourhood school allocation. In addition, the parents’ opinions were
found to differ based on social class, rather than category of support.
In conclusion, we argue that the social segregation of students with
special educational needs can be avoided, if the principle of
neighbourhood school allocation is preserved.