The New Middle School-Reform can be considered as the most ambitioned education policy in the last decade in Austria. In order to dissolve the institutionalized sorting of students between the upper track of Austrian secondary education, manifesting in grammar schools (‘Allgemeine Höhere Schulen’), and the lower track, the modern general school (‘Hauptschule’), this policy aimed to create a new school type; the new middle school. Thus, former modern general schools were thought to be transformed in new middle schools (NMS) – but grammar schools remained as choice, including an own curriculum. However, new middle schools as "new school for all" (BZLS, 2015, p. 22; authors’ translation) were supposed to cater for all students, regardless to their levels of academic abilities. Thus, NMS were thought to become a space of education in which all students are educated ‘under one roof’ (BMUKK, 2011, p. 3) - in an individualized, differentiated way (BMUKK, 2011). Accordingly, the newly introduced New Middle School Curriculum frequently referred to the principles of flexible differentiation, individualization and inclusion (BMUKK, 2012). Furthermore, this new curriculum foresaw teachers to reduce learning barriers to participation by teaching students with certified special educational needs (SEN) according to the didactic objectives of the NMS curriculum.

In our paper, we combine space theory with an ableism-critical perspective. In particular, we refer to a relational understanding of space, as it was developed by various authors of spatial sociology (e.g. Massey, 2005; Löw, 2001). The term ‘relational’ refers to the interrelatedness of materiality and sociality in the production of space. Accordingly, space is socially constituted and constructed by subjects - in relation to material conditions (Löw 2006). Studies of ableism focus on the significance of ability for social orders - as well as the associated processes of inclusion and exclusion (Campbell, 2009; Wolbring, 2012). For example, notions of normality are linked to specific expectations of ability, which go hand in hand with practices of belonging, participation, the distribution of resources and other forms of de/privileging (Campbell, 2009). In specific, these notions of ability-based normalcy create the dichotomy dis/ability and the associated 'great divide' (Campbell, 2003). Next to this binary structure, ableist orders are characterized by a fundamental hierarchy by which subjects are categorised and sorted (Buchner, 2022).

In our presentation we employ this theoretical framework for what has been termed a ‘small scale policy analysis’ (Thomson et al., 2010) – in relation to the Austrian New Middle School Policy and Inclusion. Doing so, we ask to what extent teaching practices produce educational spaces that enable all students in an individualized way - or whether rather traditional practices of ‘doing ability’ continue to shape the educational spaces under the surface of the new school form NMS. As we argue, educational practices always go hand in hand with an ability-related placing and synthesizing, producing what has been termed as ‘ability-space-regimes’ (Buchner, 2021). Following this line of thoughts, it can be reconstructed who is placed where on the basis of which ability expectation(s) and what qualities the specific arrangements of subjects, things and educational practices exhibit. Do such practices create spaces of a more just ablement or of exclusion? Consequently, teaching settings can be interrogated concerning to what extent ability grouping and the homogenizing placements that go with it, are avoided – as aimed for by the NMS-policy.

In our analysis, we refer to data produced during the IBIRUZ-project. The project aimed to reconstruct the interplay of space, difference and inclusive education in a longitudinal perspective. In the course of this explorative research, the initially broad focus condensed and the analysis of spatialised practices in relation to ability moved into the center of interest. An ethnographic multi-case-study design was chosen for analysis (Bollig et al., 2017), with cases representing differing ability-space-regimes (cf. Buchner, 2021). Thus, we refer to an ethnographic approach understood as a ‘methodological plural contextual research strategy’ (Breidenstein et al., 2013) that helps to discover new and unknown things ‘about society’ (Breidenstein, 2006, p. 21). This meant for our research to explore the spatial constructions in relation to ability that take place during lessons in NMS. In the first phase of research, comprehensive ethnographic lesson observations were conducted over a period of 6-8 weeks in spring 2018 at so-called integration classes of NMS in Vienna. Five classes from three NMS were studied during this period of fieldwork. Participant observation stood at the core of the empirical analysis. In addition, problem-centered interviews with teachers and students were conducted. In total, 279 observation lesson protocols were produced, as well as 73 interviews with students and 22 interviews with teachers were facilitated. As mentioned, by this design of research, diverse data material that was generated and analyzed in an ongoing process. Hypotheses were developed in a reflexive interplay of theory and empiricism, deepened and, if necessary, discarded or adapted in the course of data collection. In the process - in the sense of theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss, 2010). - focal points were set that were deemed meaningful, e.g. the spatial constructions in certain school subjects or also ability-oriented practices in specific instructional settings. In this way, different readings of the meanings of ability for space and vice versa were generated. Doing so, we followed the aim to give validity to the different perspectives inscribed in the data material, in order to relate data to each other and to link interpretations. With regard to the multi-case-study design pursued in IBIRUZ, this meant deepening the developing analytical concepts on a case-by-case basis and, at the same time, systematically contrasting them successively with other cases (Bollig & Kelle, 2012).

In our paper, we reconstruct what we consider as ability space-regime of a so-called ‘inclusion class’ at a NMS. As we will show, lessons in main subjects are structured by strict placings that are related to ability and curriculum. In this way, the ability-based placings of students and the specific addressing as well as educational practices create spaces of curricula, which are characterized by specific atmospheres and ability expectations. Thus, the ostensibly ‘inclusive’ teaching, taking place under the ‘surface’ of a NMS, is permeated by spatialized, ability-based hierarchies. Indeed, four curricular spaces are constructed during mathematics lessons: the spaces of the curriculum of the grammar school, for modern secondary education school, for students with high support needs and the so called general special school – all seem to co-exist under the umbrella of the NMS. These local implementation of the reform ultimately points to the path dependency and the interlinked persistence of the ableist grammar of Austrian schooling. Hence, the historically grown structures of the Austrian three-part education system have a strong influence on the formation of educational spaces of the NMS. The marking of students as 'not normal' via the classification as having SEN, which has not been left untouched by the NMS-reform, and the associated co-existence of old and new curricula, ultimately manifests itself in corresponding ability-based, spatialised arrangements in the mainstream school. As we will discuss, our heuristic approach of relating spatial theory with an ableism-critical perspective proves to be a productive matrix for research on teaching and education policies - especially in relation to the (re)production of social inequality. Furthermore, this approach can help to empirically realise the claim formulated in the literature of disability studies to use Ableism as a profitable theoretical concept that goes beyond the investigation of the construction of dis/ability (e.g. Wolbring, 2012).

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