Benchmarking disability

Moves towards inclusive schooling in Queensland, Australia have been and will continue to be influenced by a decision reached in January 1996 by the Anti‐Discrimination Tribunal in the case of a 7‐year‐old child. The Tribunal found that the State Education Department's suspension and subsequent exclusion of the child, described as being severely disabled and disruptive, from regular schooling was not unlawful within the definition of the Anti‐Discrimination Act 1991 (Queensland). This paper positions the case of ‘L’ as a ‘problem of the present’ which can be better understood through an analysis of tactics, strategies and practices which have been put in place to socially administer difference in Queensland state education. Through this analysis the ‘strangeness’ of the decision in the light of reformist legislation becomes clear.