Headmasters are rarely involved in educational research but they are, after teachers, the most important factor for the quality of inclusion in schools, and their role is relevant for the transformations of schools into inclusive communities. They are especially engaged in the politic dimension of the Index for Inclusion (promoting inclusive policies) (Booth, Ainscow, 2014). The role of headmasters is to exercise the educational leadership: they have to ensure the most suitable organized solutions to guarantee inclusion in schools. Today in Italy the figure of headmaster seems to between two opposites pole: on one hand the managerial part, according to criteria of School as a company, with a focus on management efficiency and effectiveness; on the other hand the attention to the more strictly pedagogical aspects that characterize the so-called educational leadership, that includes the inclusive leadership.
Since inclusion is based on a whole community networking and sharing an inclusive culture, which then unfolds in political choices and inclusive practices, to reduce inclusion to “a game” played only by teachers is simplistic compared to a phenomenon as complex as that of inclusion. Instead, this should be primarily supported by an inclusive school system, which sees the “inclusive leadership” of the headmaster in the foreground. They have a dual role, as far as the inclusive policies are concerned: direct and indirect. Directly regarding the promotion of networking arrangements with other schools, local authorities and third sector associations; indirectly with promoting awareness and inclusive culture within institution.
The headmaster with its presence determines certain guidelines within schools, that are going to affect in direct and indirect ways inclusive cultures, policies and practices. The organizational aspects of the school are crucial to promote (or not) certain principles: the inclusion, in fact, concerns each and every one into the school community, and so it must permeate the whole school community; each school is required to process within it, starting in the first place by the head teacher, who has to be inclusive its own pedagogical vision. Inclusion is a matter for the school community as a whole: the headmaster, the teachers, the teaching staff, everyone there has to contribute for.
The research question is: how is it built he concept of “difference/diversity” by the headmasters? The research aims to give a recognition of the meanings of the words “inclusion”, “difference/diversity” and their conceptual construction headmasters with individual interviews and a questionnaire.
The objectives of research are: emerging the spontaneous ideas of difference; finding out significant and recurring nuclei of concepts; analyzing the argumentative processes that support the concept of difference.
