The paper takes its departure point from research on school inclusion, conceived in its broadest definition as quality learning, as well as full participation for all (Booth and Ainscow 2011). In particular, the project aims at analysing educational practices at the micro level of classroom interaction, focusing on those teachers’ communicative practices which can best enhance inclusion.

The relevance of the micro level in studies on school inclusion is related to two research lines. Firstly, meta-analysis on studies that tried to demonstrate the efficacy of inclusive schooling versus special schools or special classes or viceversa could not produce univocal findings (Elbaum, 2002; Freeman and Alkin, 2000; Lindsey, 2007). This fact has led some authors to develop the hypothesis that the micro level of classrooms management might be more relevant for school efficacy than the macro level of school policies (Lindsey 2007; Norwich & Kelly 2004). Secondly, research that takes its departure from inclusion as a human right - that does not need to be demonstrated in its efficacy, but has to be granted for all (Stainback and Stainback 1990) - has always concentrated on the development of instruments and methods that enhance inclusion in the school context, on the meso level of single school organization and on the micro level of classrooms. A good example of  such approach is represented by the “Index for Inclusion” (Booth and Ainscow 2011).

The relevance of relationships on the micro level of inclusive classrooms has been underlined by several works, both internationally and nationally (for what concerns Italy). The Index for Inclusion itself puts the category “relationships” into the dimension “inclusive culture” at the basis for the other two dimensions, that is, the development of inclusion on an organizational school level and on the level of orchestrating learning processes for all. The assumption is that only in a school climate where transparent and open relationships at all levels (teacher-teacher, teacher-pupil, pupil-pupil, teachers-families…) are developed, inclusive practices become feasible (Booth and Ainscow 2011). A similar assumption has been stated in a model for inclusive didactics developed in Italy where the relationship between teachers and pupils has a crucial role, in that it is the basis for all other interventions for facilitating learning and participation (Ianes and Macchia 2008).

One of the possible ways of investigating educational relationships between teachers and pupils is the study of their interactions, as proposed by Conversation Analysis (Sacks, Schegloff  & Jefferson 1974; Sydnell & Stivers 2012). Within Conversation Analysis, a number of phenomena related to classroom interaction (cf. Fele & Paoletti 2003) have been described, such as for instance the classical initiation-response-evaluation triplet that characterizes the asymmetric communication between teacher and pupils (Mehan 1979), as well as the way in which teachers sustain pupils’ self-correction (Weeks 1985) or formulate questions in ways that lead pupils to the correct answers (Lerner 1995; Margutti 2010). Further studies have also focussed on the topic of diversity management, analzising gender differences in reproach sequences (Tainio 2011), the way teachers formulate questions while examining non-native pupils (Grassi 2007) and handle the issue of participation in multilingual classes (Ciliberti 2003). Teacher’s Talk in classes that integrate children with special educational needs have also been decribed (Berry 2008).

Against this background, the specific goal of our paper is the identification and description of some communicative strategies that foster: 1) all pupils’ participation to the knowledge co-construction process and 2) all pupils’ feeling of belonging to the class group. To this aim, instructional interaction between teachers and the whole class in primary school classes (grade 3) is investigated.

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