ABSTRACT
The voices of autistic young people remain limited in research concerning their educational experiences, their thoughts on school improvement and of what inclusion means to them. Educational research is contested in terms of how it should be done, for what purposes and by whom. Research is traditionally carried out by academics, rather than classroom practitioners, arguably creating a vacuum between what is theory and what is useful for the teacher in the classroom. Policymakers seem to prefer quantitative research outputs, perhaps due to the definiteness in supporting an argument or, indeed, the ability to offer generalisations or draw conclusions to a certain level of probability. The perspectives of autistic children remain limited, particularly within qualitative research and even more so with regard to rights-informed participatory research. A key principle of participatory research is the recognition, and undermining, of the traditional power imbalance between researcher and participant.
