Conference Program

This contribution addresses the tension between the institutional "space" of the Italian school system and the lived reality of neurodivergent development, specifically through the dual lens of a researcher and a mother of a child with AuADHD (Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD). By employing autoethnography as a critical qualitative methodology, the study investigates how contemporary educational institutions continue to operate as "normalization dispositifs," even within a framework of formal inclusion.The analysis first explores how normalization shapes bodies and behaviors in the classroom. Through the detailed narration of navigating standardized educational environments, the study reveals how the "ideal student" remains a neurotypical construct. For the AuADHD child, learning opportunities are often contingent on their ability to perform proximity to this norm. The research highlights how the Italian system, despite its progressive rhetoric, often defaults to a deficit logic: the child is viewed through a medicalized lens, where inclusion becomes a process of correcting behavioral ‘outliers’ rather than restructuring the environment. Central to this critique is the examination of spatial and institutional dispositifs. The paper analyzes the Individualized Education Plan (IEP/PEI) not merely as a tool for support, but as a site of negotiation between the child’s unique neurodevelopmental profile and the school’s rigid structural demands. I argue that the frequent turnover of special needs teachers and the fragmentation of resources function as ‘exclusionary dispositifs’ within an inclusive space. These systemic barriers create a paradoxical burden on families, who must individually compensate for institutional shortcomings, effectively privatizing the labor of care and inclusion. To reimagine educational justice beyond compensatory interventions, the study proposes a shift toward a neurodiversity-affirming framework. This approach challenges the desirability of standardized curricula, suggesting that justice is not found in ‘leveling’ the student to meet the system, but in creating flexible, stable, and professionally supported environments that recognize neurodiversity as a form of human variation. Methodologically, this work addresses the epistemological challenges of researching disability through a rigorous autoethnographic reflexivity. Rather than merely amplifying marginalized voices, the study centers on the researcher’s positionality as a ‘scholar-mother’, inhabiting the tension between the analytical distance of the sociology of education and the lived, embodied experience of neurodivergence. Autoethnography is thus employed as a critical tool to bridge the gap between institutional observation and the subjective nuances of the field, transforming personal narrative into a site of theoretical inquiry. This reflexive stance allows for a deeper interrogation of how the researcher’s own presence and dual identity shape the production of knowledge. In conclusion, this contribution calls for a systemic transformation that redistributes responsibility equitably between institutions and families. By deconstructing the ‘normalization’ apparatus, the study contributes to the panel’s objective of rethinking how space, policy, and practice can be realigned to foster individual growth and social integration, moving finally from a model of ‘compensation’ to one of ‘affirmation’.