Abstract

The concept of school inclusion applied to disabled children knows an international distribution and is more or less used in national contexts, but with wide variations in interpretation. The concept of disability tends to be supplanted by other terms such as «special needs». These notional transformations are at the heart of the tensions that exist within the education system and also perform in their relations with various external partners, including experts of disability and parents. The major issues are those of the educational finalities of the institutions and practices for these children: separate or common socialization, people development or acquisition of knowledge, perspectives of skilled labor or not etc. Among the possible approaches to the current problem, the first step is the analysis of the regulatory and institutional legislative, established in France for so-called «disabled» children. The second step is favored by the approach of ethnographic field which has the advantage of showing the representations and practices of actors in everyday life. The example developed is that of an elementary school in the city of Paris, which seeks to meet the challenge of hosting the difference while maintaining the goal of «academic excellence.» In this tension, how are teachers, specialists, parents, children with disabilities among their peers? What finally are the evolutions outlook?