19

The right to mainstream education for children with disabilities has been recognized in law since 2005. This article is based on a study carried out within a project designed to enhance their inclusion within schools. In so doing, it explores the ways in which sectoral boundaries can be crossed ‘from below’. The arrival of professionals and pupils from the French “medical-social” sector within a mainstream school aroused professional reticences within the latter. It was only after a succession of inter-professional negotiations that this crossing eventually reached a form of stability. The resulting negotiated local order has nonetheless still been rendered fragile by bureaucratic rivalries.