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’.

Disability-inclusion has become a central commitment within global education and humanitarian policy.[i] Within the field of Education in emergencies (EiE), children with disabilities are increasingly framed as a priority, invoking the principle of “leaving no one behind.” Yet in practice, they remain among the most marginalised within education interventions.[ii] Across many displacement contexts, they are significantly less likely to enrol in school, frequently redirected toward parallel segregated services, or deemed “unsuitable” for existing educational provision. The persistent gap between policy commitments and lived realities raises critical questions about how inclusion is conceptualized and operationalized within EiE systems.

Drawing on critical disability theory, the paper examines EiE as a field in which the educability of displaced bodies and minds with disabilities is continuously negotiated, classified, and regulated through Western ableist vulnerability assessments, disability hierarchization processes, and programmatic inclusion frameworks. These mechanisms operate as governance technologies that implicitly determine which children are considered includable and educable within educational spaces. Displaced children with disabilities thus occupy a paradoxical position: they are indispensable to humanitarian actors to get funding, yet marginal to the operational logics that structure educational provision.[iii] In humanitarian contexts, educational provision typically unfolds across fragmented institutional landscapes composed of NGO-run learning centres, rehabilitation services, temporary classrooms, and specialized support programmes. While these arrangements are frequently justified as mechanisms for accommodating diverse needs, they reproduced forms of exclusion. Rather than transforming pedagogical practices or institutional structures, these systems tend to evaluate children according to their capacity to comply with existing ableist norms of learning, behaviour and performance.

The analysis builds on empirical research conducted with Syrian refugee families, their children and local disability organizations in Lebanon in 2022. Interviews with parents, children, and different organizations’ representatives, revealed a widespread perception that EiE responses prioritize children with disabilities considered easier to include—particularly those with mild or physical impairments—while children with severe or complex disabilities remain largely excluded from both mainstream and specialized educational provision. Parents often reported that their children had been refused by both mainstream schools and specialized institutions, highlighting how some children are positioned as effectively beyond the limits of educability within existing humanitarian systems.

The paper argues that these differentiated regimes of inclusion are closely linked to the political economy of humanitarian governance. Within an increasingly competitive humanitarian quasi-market[iv], organizations are incentivized to prioritize interventions capable of demonstrating rapid, measurable outcomes and cost-efficiency. Disability inclusion is therefore often incorporated into project proposals as a marker of compliance and competitiveness, while the structural transformations required to include children with more complex disabilities remain largely unaddressed.[v] At a moment marked by escalating conflicts and displacement alongside significant funding contractions across the humanitarian sector, critically reassessing how inclusion is conceptualized and implemented in EiE becomes particularly urgent. By examining how humanitarian education systems produce differentiated regimes of inclusion and exclusion, the paper contributes to debates on disability, spatialized educational inequalities, and the limits of inclusion in contexts of displacement.

The present contribution addresses the mechanisms through which educational institutions and care practices operate as sites for the reproduction of inequalities by disciplining subjectivities that diverge from statistical normality and normative normalcy. The paper explores the historical and conceptual intersection of violent re-educational practices aimed at normalizing neurodivergent and queer identities, under the pretense of “evidence-based” care (Shkedy et al., 2021).

The analysis is framed within the critique of Black Pedagogy, an approach that characterizes both historical and contemporary educational postures, not merely defined by explicit physical violence but by a subtle, deep-seated intent to “bend the will” of the individual, omologating their originality to fit pre-established standards of productivity and behavioral conformity (Rutschky, 2015).

Such practices are often normalized within educational routines and justified as being psychologically and pedagogically sensible, yet they result in the depersonalization of the student and the restriction of their existential horizon.

Through the lenses of Critical Autism Studies, Queer Theory, and Neurodiversity Studies, we propose that normalization manifests through the imposition of neuro-normativity as well as hetero-normativity within educational structures as well as society at large, and that this is not an isolated degeneration of an otherwise sensible clinical and pedagogical paradigm, but a structural feature of clinical-inspired approaches to what is still known as “special pedagogy”, rooted in a pathologizing perspective on autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people’s ways of interacting (Marocchini, 2023).

In order to do so, we problematize the shared roots of behavioral approaches to autistic people’s care and education, such as Applied Behavior Analysis, and what are now described as “conversion therapies” for queer identities, both of which historically aimed to make marginalized subjects “indistinguishable from others” (Pyne, 2020).

These regimes of assessment and treatment exercise epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007) where a dominant group imposes its interpretative paradigm on the lived experiences of marginalized groups, often disregarding their voices and agency.

The contribution reflects on how these dynamics are embedded in the material and spatial fabric of institutions, where micro-segregations as well as neurotype and gender “cages” (Biemmi & Leonelli, 2017) limit what is considered appropriate participation. Through practical examples – such as the forced development of eye contact in autistic children (Korkiakangas, 2018) or the rigid gender-coding of school activities – we argue that educational “inclusion” can become a paternalistic exercise of power that fails to grant real equality. Without a radical change in paradigm, inclusion risks remaining a process where the dominant group maintains the power to decide who belongs and under what conditions of conformity.

Lastly, we seek to reimagine educational justice beyond deficit logics and compensatory interventions. We propose a shift towards an “education to possibilities” and existential planning (Bertin & Contini, 2004), which recognizes the responsibility of individuals towards their own lives and their right to transcend pre-constituted conditions. We conclude by calling for a neuroqueering (Walker, 2021) of educational systems, deconstructing power dynamics and intersectional oppressions to foster a collective liberation that values every variation of human nature as having equal dignity and opportunity.

This article examines the mechanisms through which educational institutions include or exclude students with disabilities, focusing on the intersection between pedagogical practices, institutional organization, and spatialized inequalities. Drawing on critical disability studies, neurodiversity perspectives, and intersectional approaches, it highlights the gap between theory and practice and analyzes how structural arrangements determine which students can fully participate in school life.

The analysis considers processes such as the pairing of students with disabilities with support teachers, the scheduling of support staff—often misaligned with individual learning needs—and the dual role of educators responsible for both teaching and educational support. In practice, this work frequently prioritizes routine instruction over inclusive and personalized practices. Mechanisms that limit participation, such as exemptions from subjects or activities and the “push–pull out” strategies described by Ianes and Canevaro, often remove students from mainstream classrooms rather than adapting teaching to diverse learning profiles. The Individualized Education Plan (PEI) often remains a bureaucratic document, failing to reflect genuine opportunities for learning, autonomy, and inclusion.

Educational guidance and tracking are particularly critical. Recommendations for students with disabilities often follow prescriptive, predictive trajectories, directing them toward pathways considered “more suitable” based on reduced expectations or stereotypical assumptions about their abilities. Guidance thus risks reproducing inequality by restricting access to broader educational opportunities and shaping constrained academic and professional futures.

Another key dimension concerns the intersection of disability and migrant background. Students positioned within this double marginality may face cumulative exclusion stemming both from disability-related barriers and from linguistic, cultural, or social challenges associated with migration. Teachers’ cognitive biases and implicit expectations can exacerbate this, as linguistic or cultural difficulties may be misinterpreted as cognitive deficits, reinforcing segregated educational pathways and limiting full participation.

The empirical basis of this study derives from the author’s direct experience as both classroom and support teacher, integrating systematic observations, case studies, and professional reflection with existing literature. Spatial arrangements—such as the positioning of teachers and students in classrooms—and the material organization of learning environments significantly influence participation and access to educational justice. Conceptualizing the environment as a “third educator” highlights its role in fostering meaningful participation, enabling students with disabilities to exercise autonomy, engage in learning, and be recognized as legitimate participants in school life.

Insufficient teacher recruitment criteria and training, alongside a lack of specialized pedagogical competencies, further exacerbate inequalities and hinder inclusive education. Policy insights point to the need for frameworks that move beyond deficit-based approaches, emphasizing students’ capabilities, autonomy, and right to belong. Overall, the study demonstrates how the design and implementation of support mechanisms can either reinforce structural inequalities or open pathways toward a more equitable, participatory, and just school system.

This paper examines learning difficulties in lower-secondary schooling in Naples through a sociological critique of “ordinary inclusion” in the Italian context. Taking school dropout and formative failure as indicators of system-level barriers, it asks how educational institutions recognise, organise, and allocate support in settings where vulnerability is widespread rather than exceptional. It also considers whether Montessori and other child-centred pedagogies can materialise within the classificatory structures of Italian integrazione, or whether they too risk being absorbed into compensatory logics that limit democratic participation to those officially recognised as “included.”

The paper argues that many difficulties that emerge in everyday classrooms are not adequately captured by the prevailing grammar of identification, compensation, and individualised response that underpins SEND/BES procedures and the much-celebrated integrazione scolastica (Marsili, Morganti, & Signorelli, 2021). Drawing on Slee’s (2021) critique of how inclusive education can remain structurally tied to classificatory logics, the paper foregrounds a broader field of socially shaped educational need: difficulties of attention, literacy, motivation, participation, and emotional regulation that are patterned by socio-spatial inequality yet only partially legible through formal categories. Support is typically activated only after bureaucratic recognition, leaving large zones of vulnerability pedagogically unmanaged or informally absorbed by school professionals and local actors.

Empirically, the paper draws on thematic analysis of interviews with a secondary school teacher, a school principal, a community educator, and a social worker working across three boroughs with contrasting socio-economic and demographic profiles. Despite this territorial variation, the material converges on diffuse learning difficulties, fragile or delegating family support, discontinuous and politicised services, and the growing role of schools and Third Sector organisations as compensatory infrastructures of care and mediation. These convergences suggest that educational vulnerability in Naples cannot be reduced to a single marginal neighbourhood or institutional setting, but recurs across contrasting urban contexts through mechanisms of under-support, service discontinuity, and uneven access to help.

From this perspective, ordinary inclusion appears less as an environmental transformation than as a selective distribution of exceptions to those who cross thresholds of recognisability. Although framed through the language of rights, it remains tied to classificatory practices and compensatory interventions that individualise need without reconfiguring either the classroom or the wider ecology in which schools operate. The more educational vulnerability diffuses, the more schools are required to compensate through informal commitment, overstretched practitioners, and territorially uneven arrangements rather than through proportionate and durable structures of support.

Treating Naples not as a local anomaly but as an urban lens, the paper shows how socio-spatial inequality shapes both the limits of current inclusive arrangements and the conditions under which democratic pedagogy becomes thinkable and practicable. In this respect, Montessori pedagogy offers an important point of contrast: mixed-age groupings, prepared environments, and relational practices embed participation and support in the ordinary design of schooling rather than granting them only after formal recognition (Lillard, 2005; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006). The paper, therefore, asks what institutional, spatial, and territorial barriers prevent such democratic arrangements from becoming ordinary rather than exceptional in Italian schooling.