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Julie Allan is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of Stirling, where she also directs the Participation, Inclusion and Equity Research Network. In this article, she explores the challenges involved in achieving an inclusive education system. Her argument draws on recommendations from two separate studies, undertaken in Queensland, Australia and Scotland, which are attempting to shape inclusion policy and practice. The Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study identified a set of productive pedagogies in which issues of social justice, equity and inclusion are foregrounded. The Scottish Parliamentary Inquiry into special needs, to which Professor Allan was adviser, recommended a number of changes aimed at establishing an inclusive education system for all pupils. Comparisons of the two sets of recommendations, which formed the basis of a series of workshops with teachers, school leaders and administrators within Education Queensland, have prompted two major questions which are addressed in this paper: what gets in the way of inclusive practice and what will it take to be inclusive? Julie Allan's responses to these questions take account of the ways in which we think about ‘special education’ teacher training and professional development; and educational policies and practices. She represents a fascinating set of ‘double‐edged responsibilities’ that will challenge practitioners, policy makers and teacher educators to refocus and reframe their thinking about special educational needs and inclusion.

IntroductionThe development of the field of sociology of disability can be attributed to a small number of key scholars (Len Barton, Sally Tomlinson and Mike Oliver) and is characterised by a significant shift in the analysis of the nature and causes of disability from individualistic to social and material frames of reference. This field, however, has been a somewhat troubled and contested one, with intensive battles over identity and presence and a series of active erasures and absences -the removal of the body from the social model of disability; the disappearance of the Other from educational policies and practices; disability academics" own absence from political discourse and action. These battles, and the ensuing erasures, have done little to advance the struggle for inclusive education and more voices than ever before can be heard to challenge the very idea. This article charts the emergence of the sociology of disability and examines the areas of contestation. It considers the contribution of the sociology of disability to inclusive education and examines some of the objections to it currently being voiced. The paper ends with some reflections on the possibilities for alternative forms of engagement by academics within the sociology of disability and outlines a series of duties that may make inclusive education more feasible and more capable of making a material difference to the lives of disabled children. The sociology of disabilityThe sociology of disability emerged in the 1980s as a direct challenge to the weighty paradigm of special education, with its fixation on individual deficits and remedies.Len Barton"s (1988) The politics of special educational needs; Sally Tomlinson"s