Education is a decisive factor in determining disabled people’s position in society, not only because of the importance of achieving qualifications, but also because of the role that special schools have historically played in separating disabled people from the rest of society. Over the last few decades, this form of ‘special education’ has been questioned in favour of the alternative ‘inclusive education’ model, which implies both ‘school integration’ (schooling in the same establishment as other children, in a ‘mainstream context’) and the transformation of school and learning environments to make them accessible according to a universal design that would also allow for the provision of specific accommodations where necessary (see Table 2.1). The ideal scenario evoked both in Disability Studies and in many political speeches about education is thus a progression from being enclosed within specialized educational institutions to liberation via school inclusion. To what extent does a comparison of the school experiences of different generations of disabled people corroborate this scenario?

Accounts from people schooled entirely in special schools are more common among those born between 1940 and 1960 than among those born after the 1970s. Education in mainstream schools has also become a powerful symbolic norm: it’s the most favoured option among young people, and when older people describe special education positively, they often do so in defensive terms. However, our interviews also show practices and accounts that differ from this evocation of a smooth transition from special education to school inclusion. Education in special schools was far from systematic among those born between the 1940s and the 1960s. When it did happen, it was not so much because mainstream schools had not allowed disabled children to attend, but more because it was seen as a positive choice, special education being seen as the best way of responding to the person’s needs in the absence of the necessary accommodations at the mainstream school. Furthermore, accounts of schooling from younger people reveal a reality far distant from a situation in which the right to school inclusion functions effectively.