This symposium aims to reflect on practices of inclusivity and exclusion in schools, building on four ethnographic studies conducted in public primary and secondary schools in the UK, Spain and Germany. Their shared research question is how teachers and principals understand the notion of educational inclusion, and to what extent their practices challenge social inequalities or contribute to reproduce them. Even though the authors approached this question through different methodological perspectives, they are all in line with the postulates of critical ethnography: The research projects aim to understand school contexts and their educational actors’ perspectives, set in the contemporary global context characterised by increasing socioeconomic inequalities and the constant threat of privatisation and marketisation of schools.

Changing the school paradigm has been a strong claim in the last three decades in Europe. The UNESCO and the OECD have strongly criticized the industrial school model. They highlight the need to change schools:

to prepare students for rapid economic, environmental and social changes (…) to develop curiosity, imagination, resilience and self-regulation, (…) to respect and appreciate the ideas, perspectives and values of others, (…) and to cope with failure and rejection, and to move forward in the face of adversity (OECD, 2018).

Yet with its notions of individuality and effectivity, this perspective is neoliberal at heart. An inclusive perspective (Booth and Ainscow 2011) on education might see learning as a right without any kind of discrimination. International research in the field of educational change in schools points out the difficulty of generalized or scaled-up reforms and how to make sustainable changes (Fullan, 2001; Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). Understanding the effects of the educational system and its constant reforms through the lenses of students and teachers is fundamental to illuminate processes of desire, power and hierarchy within the system of power. As Deleuze and Foucault state:

If the protests of children were heard in kindergarten, if their questions were attended to, it would be enough to explode the entire educational system. (Foucault/ Deleuze, 1977: 209).

Hence, and bearing in mind “the indignity of speaking for others” (Foucault/ Deleuze, 1977: 209), we are reflecting on our critical ethnographic approach and participatory methods researching school life as a means to listen to students’, teachers’ and principals’ perspectives of change and its implementations in specific contexts.

As a tertium comparationis we figure out and discuss in this symposium, how inclusion and educational change could be researched. We focus on this issue in our approaches and try to illuminate new questions and insights. Implementing participatory action research and case studies, the research projects are aiming to explore questions such as: What does it mean for educational actors to change schools? What goals are they following? What is the motor of change? What kind of changes are they implementing in curriculum, methodology, social relationships, organization, etc.? What are the contradictions these changes are bringing to light? How can these contradictions help reflecting on what an inclusive space for learning needs to engage with? Answering these questions through small scale examples and exploring students, teachers and principals’ voices, helps us identify how, and to which extend educational policies and school practices are approaching inclusion and explore their inconsistencies in this.

After the presentation of each national case, the authors will propose some questions to engage in a discussion on the similarities between the processes of change explored in the four studies. They will specifically focus on the difficulties to promote change oriented towards equity, incoherences or invisibilities in educational practices and discourses, and the necessary complexities of conducting research within this field.

Booth, T., & Ainscow, M. (2011). Index for inclusion. Developing learning and participating in schools (3. Aufl). Bristol: CSIE." Foucault, M. & Deleuze, G. (1977). Intellectuals and Power. In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, edited by D. F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Fullan, M. (2001). The New Meaning of Educational Change. Routledge: London. Hargreaves, A. & Goodson, I. (2006) Educational change over time? The sustainability and Nonsustainability of Three Decades of Secondary School Change and Continuity. Educational administration quarterly, 42(1), 3-41. OECD (2018). The Future of Education and Skills. Education 2030. Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org/education/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf