The Construction of “Rational Accommodation” in an Elementary School: Focusing on the “re-entry procedure” for a disabled child

This paper analyzes how rational accommodation for a disabled child was constructed by using the “cutting out operation” of ethnomethodology in the case of an elementary school that conducts inclusive education. It has been pointed out that rational accommodation has an ex-post, individual and interactive character. However, previous studies have not fully examined the process by which individual considerations based on the ex-post revelation of a disabled child are interactively constructed. Dorothy E. Smith has introduced the concept of the “cutting-out operation” which occurs when people describe a particular person as being mentally ill by drawing a border within a circle of people. This paper describes the process of construction of rational accommodation as an analytical framework that uses not only the “cutting out operation” but also the “re-entry procedure,” which comes after the “cutting out.” In other words, it attempts to clarify the process by which the rationality of consideration was achieved through the two practices of “cutting out” and “re-entry” by all the participants, including the disabled child. As a result of this analysis, the following three points were revealed. First, the disabled child brought about some rational accommodation by differentiating himself from others when he needed support. Second, this child set a boundary so that he could accommodate both his lack of skills and his “blindness,” and then in the way he differentiated himself from other disabled children when he refused the form of consideration suggested to him. Third, even when this child had accepted a suggestion, the form of this consideration was questioned as both the object and subject of the consideration expanded. In the conclusion, the paper introduces Gart Biesta’s argument to explore the possibility of transforming the existing order in elementary schools that are mainly intended for children without disabilities. The perspective of “surrounding as a driving force of inclusion” and the interactivity of rational accommodation were discussed as ways that can lead to such a transformation. As the understanding of the participants observed in this paper demonstrates, the disabled child who participated in the activities in a regular classroom with other students was present as an “other” who needed to be considered. The analysis in this paper, however, reveals that the issue of interactivity continued even after this order was transformed by the presence o