ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the implementation of inclusive education in new middle schools (NMS, secondary level I) in Austria. Based on an ableism-critical perspective, the authors explore spatialized practices in a so called “integration class” at an NMS in Vienna. As the authors show, combining space and ableism for a theoretical framework allows for a deepening understanding of inclusion and exclusion in an untouched meritocratic school system. This reveals how even ostensibly inclusive, cooperative teaching taking place under the “surface of the NMS” is fundamentally permeated by ability-related hierarchies.
