Contesting doxa: The Swedish National Association of the Deaf’s Resistance to School Integration, 1963–1993

Although the integration of children with disabilities into mainstream schools has been a political goal since the 1960s, historical research on the perspectives of people with disabilities remains limited. Drawing on Bourdieusian sociology, this article examines the Swedish National Association of the Deaf’s (SDR) involvement in the struggle over school integration from 1963 to 1993. The Swedish case offers broader insights by highlighting tensions between a state-driven integration agenda and the lived realities of the disability rights movement – tensions expressed through the deaf movement’s organised and sustained resistance. The movement also influenced the drafting of the internationally endorsed Salamanca Statement on inclusive education, challenging universal claims of school inclusion. Three key insights are offered: (1) The Swedish state sought to establish school integration as doxa in the educational field, threatening SDR’s accumulated capital – including linguistic and educational expertise, social networks, institutional funding and recognition of deaf culture; (2) By mobilising symbolic capital, the SDR developed resistance strategies such as producing alternative knowledge, promoting their interpretation of integration, and building alliances with experts, celebrities and deaf youth; (3) While school integration became dominant, SDR’s capital enabled them to partly challenge this norm and secure exceptions for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.