ABSTRACT
For more than a decade, researchers have been engaged in questions related to integrating the disabled. The main research questions have been evaluative (is integration good or bad?) and normative (how to make integration work). Although some knowledge about integration has been generated from these perspectives, research has failed to come up with any definite answer to the questions posed. In this chapter I will argue that neither the evaluative nor the normative questions are very fruitful ones. They tend to trap researchers into asking questions about segregation-integration that blind them to more relevant ones. Research gets caught up in a debate on integration that cannot-by its very nature-be answered by research. By accepting the idea that ‘we’ are integrating ‘them’, the research focus is narrowed down to questions of whether ‘we’ are doing the right thing or how ‘we’ should do it. This prevents us from asking other basic questions about the lives of the disabled.
