Autism, Body and Space

How teachers’ ability expectations performatively shape and contain the autistic body in school spaces

Abstract

This paper deals with the question of how autism is dealt with in and by schools – especially with regard to the claim of (spatial) participation. Based on empirical research, the article examines how teacher expectations of abilities and (learning) behaviour are incorporated and relationally form bodily images of ‘autism’ contrasting the ‘normal’ child in and through school spaces. This eventually results in spatial arrangements. Interview data with teachers from elementary schools in South Germany was gathered and analysed regarding the research question: how are “autistic bodies” narrated by teachers in school and what spatial arrangements are evoked by this? We discuss our findings with reference to Norbert Elias’ works on the process of civilization and Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of space and the body. We show how, in highly regulated educational organisations such as schools, the “unruly autistic body” is shaped in relation to spatially prefigured behavioural expectations and how a perceived lack of the ‘right (neurotypical) bodily hexis’ of autistic students lead to spatial exclusion and a withdrawal of academic expectations. Turning back to the educational discourse on autism, we propose a paradigm shift regarding teachers’ diagnostic practices.