“We are not friends with the dissimilarity”: Social exclusion of elementary school pupil with special educational needs

The purpose of this article is to provide insights into the lives of children in an elementary school classroom in the Slovak Republic. Special atten- tion is paid to the social position of pupils with spe- cial educational needs. The text also includes a reflec- tion on the roles of researchers in educational settings and on the writing of fieldnotes within the context of a school class. The article is based on qualitative in- ductive and ethnographic fieldwork. Ethnographic ob- servations play a key role in this fieldwork. The arti- cle shows examples of the marginalization and school bullying of a pupil with special educational needs. To some degree, these examples need to be considered in the light of the boundaries of children’s tolerance