ABSTRACT
People with intellectual disabilities are among the most vulnerable and marginal of all. This chapter presents a case study that concerns the way Victorian government policy of the late 1980s on the 'integration' of children with disabilities into the school system affected the discourses between and within two school councils. It also concerns the consequences of government policy concerning the increases in school council powers—in effect, to give more local 'community' control and responsibility to the councils. Interwoven throughout, as indeed for any element of social life, is gender. The case study focuses partly on the few men who endeavoured to dissolve a Special Developmental School and immerse its people in a large primary school. The chapter explores the gender processes and structures in primary schools and their communities from a larger research project.
