The examination of the conceptual and contextual backdrop of inclusive education, in France and all over the world, at the institutional, legal, political, psychoanalytical and ethical levels, leads us to explore the variations of this notion. Indeed, the notion of inclusive education is not understood in the same way everywhere. It may be viewed as one of the compensatoryresources aimed at facilitating integration of young people in a situation of disability in a mainstream environment. This « reductionist » approach, linked to « integrative » practices involving dispensations, deserves to be confronted with the goal of universal accessibility of educational systems, with a view to deconstructing existing norms. A study is being conducted on the precariousness of the educational status of the disabled pupil in a mainstream environment. Professional « integrative » practices place the disabled pupil under the threat of being sent back to specialized territories. Do practices of « inclusion » change this situation? The point is to show how teachers can deal with the continuum of the variety of pupils through a continuum of pedagogical accessibility. There are a number of things at stake here: professional representations, teaching strategies and pedagogical tools. If we analyze these elements we can demystify the often over-dramatized « accommodation of difference ». At this level, the schooling of young deaf persons, whose natural language is sign language, in a mainstream environment, is emblematic. It sheds light upon the lingering « clinicalcorrective » approaches focused on deficiencies. What is at stake, however, is the deprivation of freedom and of signals communicating wishes, signals that deaf persons understand with their eyes.
