The conversational interactions of 9 teachers and their third-grade students were recorded during individual seatwork time in academic lessons. teachers' views about their responsibilities in working with students who are exceptional or at risk of academic failure were quite divergent and were related to their instructional discourse strategies. teachers who saw themselves as instrumental in effective inclusion engaged in more academic compared to nonacademic interactions. this group also exhibited greater use of techniques to extend students' thinking, compared to those teachers who held contrasting views. they also interacted more with their students who are exceptional and at risk than with their typically achieving students, and at higher levels of cognitive extension than did the other teachers, who seldom interacted with the students who were in the exceptional and at-risk group. the results shed light on how teachers differ in adapting instruction for students in inclusive classrooms, and how instruction might be differentially delivered as a function of teachers' views about inclusion.

No abstract