Vol. 78. No. 1. pp. 24-38. ©2011 Councilfor Exceptional Children. Social Network Placement of Rural Secondary Students With Disabilities: Affiliation and Centrality THOMAS W. FARMER Pennsylvania State University MAN-CHI LEUNG MARGARET P. WEISS MATTHEW J. IRVIN JUDITH L. MEECE BRYAN C. HUTCHINS University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill ABSTRACT: r: This study examined social network centrality (i.e., social salience, peer group linkages) and peer affliations in 20 rural high schools across the United States. The total sample consisted of 1,672 students in Grades 9 to 12, including 164 students with disabilities (69 females). In com- parison to their peers without disabilities, students with disabilities were more likely to be identi- fied as isolated, peripheral, or secondary in their school social structures. This finding suggested that they had lower levels of social visibility and social connections. Further, peer associates of students with disabilities tended to have less favorable interpersonal characteristics; and the peer groups in which they were members tended to be characterized by risk configurations that are associated with poor educational outcomes. T he social difficulties of students known about the peer relations of high school with a broad range of disabilities students with disabilities. Further, investigations' are well documented (e.g., Gre- ofthe social adaption of students with disabilities sham & MacMillan, 1997; Sale has centered on peer acceptance problems and & Garey, 1995). Mucb ofthe corresponding social competence deficits, research on the social adjustment of youth with Although such work is critically important (see disabilities, however, has focused on elementary Leffert, Siperstein, &C Millikan, 2000; Nowicki, or middle school students and relatively little is' 2003; Siperstein & Parker, 2008), it only Fall 2011