This paper stems from my doctoral research aiming to understand cultures of mainstream primary schools; this research focused on teaching and non-teaching staff perspectives on including disabled children, often labelled children with special educational needs, in mainstream settings. Located within the broader field of narrative inquiry, this study aimed to give a voice to key stakeholders who do not ordinarily enter the academic or political arenas in which inclusion is debated.The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase I carried out a survey of teaching and non-teaching staff views on inclusive education for disabled children. I posted 1,723 questionnaires to all teaching and learning support staff in 82 schools of one local authority; 330 questionnaires were returned from 47 schools (53% of schools, 5-65% of staff in each school). High response and level of engagement are noteworthy: additional information of up to three pages was volunteered, including one poem. I used both quantitative (SPSS) and qualitative (NVivo) software packages to make sense of this data.Phase two was a qualitative inquiry comprising a close-up exploration of staff views in two mainstream infant schools, selected on the basis of survey responses. Every member of teaching and support staff was invited to an individual 30-minute interview to discuss experiences and thoughts on inclusion (22 interviews conducted). I also became a regular visitor/helper in one class for at least half a day a week over a five-month period attempting to share, as much as possible, the lived experience of mainstream school staff. Interviews were fully transcribed and coded (NVivo) into categories that emerged from the data. Keen to pursue joint interpretation of findings, I revisited one of the focus schools one year later and discussed research findings during a staff meeting.I have sought, throughout this research project, to engage with practitioners' perspectives in order to understand and re-present these. I have proposed employing "kaleidoscopic understanding", appraising a position in relation to the standpoint from which it is being held, and suggested that this can enhance awareness of all perspectives. Having made a number of innovative methodological decisions during the course of this research, I also experimented with alternative representational forms. In this paper I shall present my rationale for engaging with fictional representation of research as a means of creating an engaging text which safeguards anonymity, eschews interpretive closure and keeps multiple voices simultaneously alive, thus foregrounding the complexity of lived experience.Banks, A., & Banks, S. P. (1998). Fiction and social research : by ice or fire. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press. Campbell, A. (2000). Fictionalising research data as a way of increasing teacher's access to school-focussed research. Research in Education, 63, 81-88. Clough, P. (2002). Narratives and fictions in educational research. Buckingham: Open University Press. Josselson, R. (1996). Ethics and process in the narrative study of lives. London: Sage. Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, E. A. (2005). Writing: A Method of Inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd edition). London: Sage. Sparkes, A. C. (2002). Telling tales in sport and physical activity : a qualitative journey. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics. of Inclusive Education or Qualitative Inquiry