ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned both with the production and employment of sociologies of disability. It considers the development of social theories of disability and focuses upon the implications of theories of disability for educational practices. The language of integration provides little discursive challenge to state education authorities managing the politics of difference through policy struggles at all levels of educational administration and delivery. The virtual disappearance of the unskilled labour market provides ample space for an expanding special educational industry. Social theories of disability will provide leadership in the reconstruction of schools committed to inclusion and dissatisfied with tokenistic integration. The agenda is set by the special educational fraternity so that integration typically becomes a compensatory programme for a ‘special’ group of children. Major research grants in inclusive education continue to be awarded to the traditional special educational research centres which continue to draw their breath from the medical model of disability while exhaling a language of inclusion.
