ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an exemplar of the write-up of the second main type of study which can be conducted where the central underlying principles are those of the symbolic interactionist theoretical approach within the interpretivist paradigm, namely, studies where the research question is formulated in terms of how participants ‘deal with’ ‘things’. The background to the study is the trend over the last 25 years towards the ‘inclusion’ of students with intellectual disabilities into the mainstream of education rather than having them educated in the separate environment of the special class or special school. This development has posed challenges for teachers and has generated an associated research agenda for educational researchers. The particular focus of the study, undertaken with Dr Ron Chalmers, was on the ‘inclusion’ of children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities into the ‘regular’ classroom setting in the state of Western Australia (WA). The aim was to generate theory on how teachers in rural and remote schools in WA who had no specifi c training for the education of children with disabilities ‘dealt with’ their classroom work when they were placed in the position of including a student with a severe or profound intellectual disability in their class.
