Spaces of Relational Opacity – Participatory Sense-Making and the Ethics of Being With Autistic People

Educational research and practice are often grounded in normative assumptions about communication that prioritise rapid, transparent and neuronormative forms of interaction, constraining the recognition of neurodivergent participation. This conceptual article advances a neurodiversity-affirming framework by integrating multiple theoretical strands – participatory sense-making, embodied perception, relational opacity, Being With and embodied flow dynamics – into a coherent model that reinterprets classroom interaction as an ecological, co-creative process.

Our principal contribution lies in applying this integrated framework at the level of concrete classroom mechanisms, showing how sensory ecologies, interactional pacing and embodied coordination shape opportunities for participatory sense-making. We argue that moments of communicative breakdown in mixed-neurotype settings reflect ecological misalignments and epistemic norms, rather than properties located within individuals.

A further novel dimension is the cross-disciplinary analysis, bringing philosophical, empirical and educational insights into constructive dialogue to support a shift from correction toward designing inclusive environments that sustain diverse embodied rhythms and make space for non-normative forms of engagement, helping to move inclusion from ideal to practice.

Lay Abstract

Educational research and classroom practice often rely on narrow ideas about communication. These ideas usually value fast responses, clear verbal expression and socially ‘typical’ ways of interacting. As a result, many forms of neurodivergent participation are overlooked or misunderstood.

This article argues that difficulties in classroom communication are not caused by individual neurodivergent students. Instead, they often arise from the way learning environments are designed and from expectations about how communication should look. The article brings together different ways of thinking about interaction, the body and relationships to show that learning is something people create together, over time, and through shared sensory and emotional experiences.

The article introduces a new way of understanding classroom interaction by focusing on everyday features such as sensory environments, the pace of interaction and how people coordinate their movements, attention and emotions. From this perspective, moments of misunderstanding or silence are not failures but signals that the environment may not be supporting everyone equally.

By combining ideas from philosophy, research and education, this article highlights the importance of designing learning spaces that allow for different communication styles, rhythms and ways of being together. The aim is to support more inclusive educational environments that value neurodivergent ways of engaging, moving inclusion from an abstract ideal into everyday practice.