The papers submitted here, with the associated commentary, offer a contribution to the debate on educational inclusion based on the theorising of a range of research involving different groups but with the common theme of the challenge to inclusion of deviance. The research reported in the nine papers addresses broad issues of inclusion / exclusion, as the focus of the papers includes not only special educational needs but also gender, ethnicity, poverty and social exclusion. In the commentary linking the nine papers I offer a critique of the various definitions of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties,' SEBD', in practice and how these are used in the current theoretical and policy discussions of inclusion and of exclusion. I argue for the possibility of constructing a more complex multidimensional model of ‘SEBD’, which recognises the complexities of its social construction but still acknowledges the often difficult experiences of young people and those professionals involved with them. This commentary will attempt to show that an explication of a individual young people within a critical, reflective framework.