The experiences of young people with disabilities of inclusive schooling are largely underresearched. This paper reports recent findings of a small-scale Australian qualitative study, in which secondary students with vision impairment spoke about their experiences of receiving paraprofessional support. Two overarching themes emerged from this study: ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ paraprofessional support. The results presented here demonstrate that participants described that support personnel upheld the strong arm of the special education tradition, which was manifestly detrimental to their inclusion. Raw data is presented to elucidate the emergent themes, and to explain the various pedagogical and general support roles of class and special educators in eliminating the need for direct paraprofessional presence in lessons. The light and heavy model of support is also examined in terms of how it fits into the complexity of the education discourse and the young people's own aspirations for full inclusion.

The inclusion of students with vision impairment (VI) into regular classes is typically made possible via a raft of technical accommodations and special educational support. This article reports key findings of a small-scale qualitative Australian study conducted with a group of secondary school students with VI about teachers’ practices that increased their access and autonomy. Participants reported that a combination of (1) using appropriate communication modes, (2) making accessible resources available to students in a timely manner, (3) being able to ‘think outside the box’ about the provision of access to diagrammatic study material, and (4) being approachable outside of scheduled lessons for individual consultations increased their inclusion in the school. Raw data are presented to illustrate the value of these practices to the students. This article concludes with a discussion of the potential of students’ views to the facilitation of inclusive practices, and the broader implication of this to the teaching profession.

In this paper, I report core findings of a small‐scale qualitative study that I conducted with a group of young people with vision impairment who attended an inclusive secondary school in the Australian state of Queensland. My objective was to capture their voiced experiences of their schooling through face‐to‐face interviews and to develop a substantive theory that was grounded in the collected data. Relevant to the study was my status as an insider researcher, which impacted both data collection and analysis. Here, I develop the methodological process that I followed and present core findings of the study. These findings shed light on the practices within schools that are designed to promote inclusion yet perpetuate exclusion for students with impaired vision.

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