Isolation and loneliness in middle and high school: The experience of young people with mental or psychological disabilities

This article seeks to document the experiences of young people with mental or psychological disabilities in terms of loneliness and isolation. The aim is to describe and analyze the various forms of loneliness experienced by the students, and how they are rooted—or not—in processes of social assignment or paradoxical forms of isolation generated by the institutional and spatial arrangements of facilities intended for inclusive education (such as ULIS in France). Furthermore, we will show that the feeling of loneliness and the fragility of these young people’s relational social ties are not inevitable.