ABSTRACT
This chapter examines qualitative research with young people defined as having Special Educational Needs (SEN) and educational professionals, within mainstream secondary schools. It outlines the conceptualisation of disability, and determines the need to more fully incorporate socio-emotional differences. The chapter provides brief details about the empirical study from which findings are drawn. It traces some examples of how disability can be practiced around socio-emotional difference. Young people with socio-emotional differences are disabled by contrast to behavioural norms and subject to a variety of disabling practices, such as labelling and diagnostic processes, and various exclusions/marginalisations within and from school institutional spaces. It is important to highlight the socio-spatial processes that disable individuals with socio-emotional differences, constructing a pseudo-medical category of Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD). The chapter explores the experiences of young people with a range of SEN diagnoses, whose behavioural practices conflict with school socio-emotional norms.
