Schools sort students—into academic tracks, ability groups, specialized programs, and streams. This sorting has profound consequences for opportunity and outcomes. When students with disabilities are streamed into lower tracks or segregated programs, the sorting becomes a mechanism of exclusion, limiting possibilities in the name of meeting needs. Understanding how streaming and other exclusionary practices operate in education reveals how systems can undermine the inclusion they claim to support.
How Streaming Works
>Academic streaming places students in different course pathways based on perceived ability or career trajectory. In Ontario, for example, secondary students have been sorted into academic, applied, and locally developed courses—with implications for post-secondary options. Similar systems exist elsewhere under various names.
>Streaming decisions are made early and often stick. Once placed in a lower stream, students rarely move up. The initial sorting becomes self-fulfilling—lower expectations, less challenging content, and reduced opportunities combine to produce the lower achievement the sorting predicted.
>Research consistently shows streaming reflects and amplifies existing inequities. Students from lower-income families, racialized students, and students with disabilities are overrepresented in lower streams. The sorting isn't neutral—it maps onto social hierarchies.
>The rationale for streaming—that students learn better with others of similar ability, that different students need different content—has limited evidence support. Research on destreaming suggests benefits for lower-stream students without significant harm to higher-stream students.
Disability and Streaming
>Students with disabilities are disproportionately placed in lower academic streams. This isn't solely about academic ability—it reflects assumptions, convenience, and resource constraints. A student with a learning disability might be able to succeed in academic courses with appropriate support but be placed in applied courses where support demands are lower.
>Streaming decisions for students with disabilities may be made without adequate assessment of capacity with accommodation. What students can do with appropriate support differs from what they appear capable of without it. Streaming based on unsupported performance underestimates potential.
>Specialized education programs—whether called special education, exceptional student programs, or other names—represent another form of streaming. These programs serve students with disabilities separately from general education, with varying degrees of integration and varying quality of education.
>The pathway from specialized programs to competitive employment or post-secondary education is often unclear. Students in these programs may not receive education that prepares them for meaningful adult participation. Streaming into specialized programs can become streaming away from opportunity.
Self-Contained Settings
>Some students with disabilities spend part or all of their school day in self-contained settings—separate classrooms, schools, or programs. The justification is that these settings can provide specialized support that regular classrooms can't. The cost is separation from non-disabled peers and potentially from the regular curriculum.
>The appropriate use of self-contained settings is contested. Some argue these settings provide essential specialized support; others argue they perpetuate segregation that inclusion principles should eliminate. Different disability communities hold different views.
>The quality of education in self-contained settings varies enormously. Some provide excellent specialized instruction; others warehouse students with minimal educational value. The variation makes generalization about these settings difficult.
>Transition from self-contained to inclusive settings is often difficult. Students who've been educated separately may not have the skills or experiences to succeed in regular classrooms. The separation itself creates gaps that make integration harder.
Exclusionary Discipline
>Students with disabilities face exclusionary discipline—suspension and expulsion—at higher rates than other students. Behaviour related to disability may be punished rather than understood. The result is lost instructional time for students who can least afford it.
>Zero tolerance policies that mandate suspension for certain behaviours disproportionately affect students with disabilities whose behaviour may manifest as violation of rules they struggle to follow. Policies designed for safety become tools of exclusion.
>Alternative to suspension programs and restorative approaches offer different models, but implementation is inconsistent. When discipline focuses on teaching rather than punishment, students with disabilities can be supported rather than excluded.
>Legal protections limit exclusionary discipline for students with disabilities, requiring consideration of whether behaviour relates to disability before suspension or expulsion. But these protections are imperfectly applied, and the process of invoking them creates its own burdens.
De Facto Exclusion
>Beyond formal streaming and discipline, informal exclusionary practices create de facto segregation. Students with disabilities may be present in inclusive classrooms but effectively excluded—seated separately, working on different content, interacting primarily with EAs rather than teachers or peers.
>Reduced schedules that allow students with disabilities to attend school only part-time represent another exclusionary practice. While sometimes appropriate for health reasons, reduced schedules may also be used when schools can't or won't provide full support.
>Counselling out—advising families that another school or program would better serve their child—represents soft exclusion. Schools may not formally refuse to serve students but may make clear their preference that students go elsewhere.
>Physical exclusion through inaccessible spaces occurs when activities happen in locations students with disabilities can't access. Field trips to inaccessible sites, activities requiring abilities some students lack, and events in spaces without accessible features all exclude without explicitly intending to.
Challenging Exclusion
>Destreaming initiatives aim to end academic tracking that sorts students by perceived ability. Some jurisdictions have moved toward destreamed courses, at least in earlier grades. The transition requires teacher development and support to teach diverse classrooms effectively.
>Inclusion policies that affirm students' rights to education in regular classrooms create framework for challenging exclusionary practices. But policies require implementation—and implementation varies with resources, training, and commitment.
>Family advocacy challenges exclusionary practices for individual students. Parents who push back against streaming, discipline, or soft exclusion sometimes succeed. But this places burden on families and doesn't change system patterns.
>Systemic advocacy—organizing, litigation, political engagement—works toward changing the structures that produce exclusionary practices. This work is slow and requires sustained effort, but it addresses roots that individual advocacy doesn't reach.
Questions for Reflection
>Is there a legitimate role for separate educational settings for some students with disabilities, or should full inclusion be the only model? How do different disability communities view this question?
>How can schools be accountable for the outcomes of students placed in lower streams or separate settings? What would meaningful accountability look like?
>When does grouping by ability or need become streaming that limits opportunity? Where should lines be drawn?