Performative pedagogies of care and the emerging geographies of school exclusion for students with disability

In this paper, I examine how performative practices of care that are primarily focused on academic achievement and learning outcomes have contributed to the creation of geographies of exclusion within mainstream schools for students with disability. Through a study of a 12-year-old student diagnosed with autism in a secondary school in Melbourne, Australia, I maintain that performative care makes certain groups of students ‘intelligible’ by responding to their needs while rendering others as unrecognisable care subjects in schools. The cognitive ableist bias underpinning performative care provides students with academic abilities with the necessary permissions to develop a sense of belonging to the mainstream school while creating boundaries of exclusion against those who do not embody the qualities of performative student subjects. I maintain that an approach to care as a public good and a relational ethics can help create more inclusive social geographies within mainstream schools for students with disability.