The Politics of Integration—new Sites for Old Practices?

Public education authorities throughout the Australian States and Territories have moved towards the development of policies and programmes to integrate students considered disabled into regular classrooms. The implementation of policy frequently is reduced to disputation over resources which, it is argued, will facilitate integration. This paper contends that such debates sustain the flawed notion that integration is simply a technical issue to be achieved through deployment of special equipment and personnel to regular schools, recommending a further consideration of the contribution of pedagogy, curriculum and school organisation to disabling or enabling educational programmes.