This brief essay celebrates the work of Len Barton. Drawing from a range of his texts, interviews and presentations, the essay attempts to demonstrate the importance of Barton's work in establishing foundations for the related fields of disability studies in education and inclusive education by revealing the politics of special educational needs and the requirement for a sociological analysis of traditional special education as a force for the disablement of vulnerable students. The essay will illustrate the centrality and the particularity of the complex relationships between research, teaching, learning and activism in the thinking and work of Professor Barton. (Contains 3 notes.)