The exploratory research aimed to examine key-words related to inclusion from school principales in Veneto Region, in the North of Italy.  The research investigated the inclusive cultures, policies and practices of school principales, starting with the meanings of the words “inclusion”, “difference/diversity” and their conceptual construction.

School principales are rarely involved in educational research, especially with qualitative methodology, 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. The role of headmasters is to exercise the educational leadership: they have to ensure the most suitable organized solutions to guarantee inclusion in schools. 

Inclusion should be primarily supported by an inclusive school system, which sees the “inclusive leadership” of the school principales in the foreground. They have a dual role, as far as the inclusive policies are concerned: direct and indirect. 

The figure of school principales in Italy seems to be between two opposite pole:  between leadership and management, a figure who today is engaged for most of the time by bureaucratic issues and continuous legislative changes and who sees the space for intervention increasingly reduced with regard to pedagogical and didactic issues. The inclusive school principale is the one who promotes inclusive cultures, policies and practices within school settings (Booth & Ainscow, 2014). 

The theoretichal framework is based by the Index for Inclusion, putting the italian inclusive leadeship into a European dimension. 

The research methodology that was used is the semi-structured interview. It were asked 8 open questions. The interviews allows to go deep on issues emerged, because the research theme is almost unexplored in Italy. The Index for Inclusion tool developed by Booth and Ainscow (2014) was used as a guiding tool for the construction of the interview questions. The commitment of principales in promoting inclusion is realized in all three dimensions outlined in the Index for Inclusion (Booth, Ainscow, 2014): promoting inclusive cultures, policies and practices. Starting from the key words considered significant to be investigated in relation to the area under study (inclusion, integration, SEN, inclusive class, specialized teachers for support activities, inclusive culture / policy / practice), the questions were formulated to explore the inclusive concepts of principales. It has been placed n. 8 questions relating to the thematic nuclei to be developed; the sequence of the same, as foreseen in the semi-structured interview, was not pre-established, and sometimes the order of presentation was changed based on the interviewee's answers, following the natural argumentative development. The passage to the next question took place starting from the answer received in the previous one, sometimes going to deepen a topic that had already emerged spontaneously previously. In fact, in this type of interview, the data collection phase and the material analysis phase are not clearly separated. After a first question of a general nature, to allow the manager to give a broad and personal overview on the topic of the interview, the other questions were focused on some of the key themes of italian inclusion, also requiring the contextualization of the answers in relation to their specific school situation.

The direct involvement of principales within the research is an important element to consider, as their participation in pedagogical research is scarce. From the interviews, it emerges criticisms about inclusion in schools. Headmasters recognize the importance of inclusion, but they don’t feel qualified in this field and they feel that they don’t have enough time to dedicate at this theme. It is recognized by headmasters that today the term inclusion no longer concerns only the students with disabilities, but the whole set of differences in classes. To answer the challenge of heterogeneity are required resources that today are missing, partly due to the economic crisis. They underline the gap between the Italian laws on school inclusion, which is still considered a model at international level, and the difficulty of transferring its principles into teaching practice. For headmasters, it is necessary to increase skills for inclusion in every teacher, considering training strategic lever for change, but also by fostering an evolution of the figure of the support teacher. Another critic to the Italian inclusive system is recognized in the lack of support teachers with a specialization title, and the problem that teachers also changes during the school year. The introduction of the SEN law has been negatively experienced by teachers, and school principales report that is produced a risk of labelling pupils without improving classroom practices. About self-assessment of inclusive processes within their schools, only one school seems to implement a monitoring plan of the quality of inclusion inspired by Index for Inclusion, while the others don’t know the available tools or they’re not wishing to use them. School principales haven’t the complete awareness of their important role about inclusion in schools, and they delegate this task to some of their teachers. At the end of the research is provided the definition of guidelines for an inclusive leadership.

Ainscow M., Sandill A. (2010). Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organisational cultures and leadership. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14, 4, 401-416. Ainscow M. (2005). Developing inclusive education systems: what are the levers for change? Journal of Educational Change, 6(2), 109-124. Azor n C., Ainscow M. (2020). Guiding schools on their journey towards inclusion. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24, 1, 58-76. Booth T. (2011). The name of the rose: Inclusive values into action in teacher education. Prospects, 41(3), 303-318. Booth T., Ainscow M. (2016). Index for Inclusion: a guide to school development led by inclusive values. Index for Inclusion Network Limited. Capper C.A. (2017). Organizational Theory for Equity and Diversity: Leading Integrated, Socially Just Education. Routledge. Florian L. (2014). What counts as evidence of inclusive education? European Journal of Special Needs Education, 29(3), 286-294. Ianes D., Cramerotti S. (eds, 2016). Dirigere scuole inclusive. Strumenti e risorse per il dirigente scolastico. Trento: Erickson. Ruzzante G. (2021). La leadership inclusiva. Promuovere culture, politiche e pratiche inclusive nelle istituzioni scolastiche. Lecce: PensaMultimedia, in press. Sergiovanni T. (1999). Building Community in Schools. John Wiley&sons. Serpieri R., Vatrella S. (2017). Collaborative Leadership and Teachers Wellbeing. Research Strategies and School Governance in the Italian Education Field. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 9(1), 174-198. Theoharis G., Scanlan M. (eds). (2015). Leadership for Increasingly Diverse Schools. Routledge.