This study presents an ongoing research on initial teacher education for inclusive education in Chile, aiming to stimulate discussion about teacher education for inclusion in a highly standardised educational system driven by market forces. Previous research has shown that the Chilean system struggles to implement inclusive policies (Lopez et al., 2018) and that teachers' roles are limited by prescriptive mechanisms (Assaél et al., 2018). The results of this research are expected to contribute to the international debates about the challenges of teacher education in this topic in different contexts.

Inclusive education has become a crucial international project in recent decades (Ainscow et al., 2019). Due to its complexity, inclusive education requires collaboration among various educational stakeholders. Teachers are considered key actors in this process, and initial teacher education plays a central role (Li & Ruppar, 2021). However, despite the integration of inclusion into teacher education programs, literature shows that teachers still feel unprepared (Florian & Camedda, 2020). 

International research on teacher education for inclusion points out various challenges to address. First, it has mainly focused on developing positive attitudes, knowledge and skills towards inclusion (Tristani & Basset-Gunter, 2020), and the comprehension of the contextual factors which influence teacher education is still needed (Pugash et al., 2020). Second, other authors underline the relevance of the knowledge needed for an inclusive pedagogy (Florian & Camedda, 2021), particularly in student teachers’ practicum at schools (Sharma, 2018). In that regard, a broad approach to studying teacher education for inclusion is critical.

The study conceptualises inclusive education from a social justice perspective (Waitoller, 2020), emphasising teacher education's role in understanding and addressing social injustice, reflecting on the school context and their teaching practice, and promoting transformative agency (Pantić & Florian, 2015). Additionally, the study considers student teachers' school experiences as part of subjectivity formation and production, where teachers redefine their identity through interaction with others (Larrosa, 2004). Hence, this research focuses on exploring the complexity of the experiences of inclusion and exclusion during the practicum that tension initial teacher education programs. 

Accordingly, this paper will be guided by the following question: how do student teachers' experiences in practicum at schools affect their stance on inclusive education? Thus, the study seeks to characterize primary student teachers’ practicum experiences related to inclusion and exclusion and analyse their stance on inclusive education.

The study adopts a narrative approach to reconstruct, resignify, and crystallise the meanings that student teachers give to their experiences (Aguirre & Porta, 2019). This approach emphasises the construction of experiences and knowledge, considering the life course that shapes and makes meaning to them. Also, the experiences that are understood in social and institutional frameworks move these further in their subjective dimension (Delory-Momberger, 2020). The research explored the case of an initial teacher education program in Chile, where each student teacher was treated as an analysis unit integrating the case. Particularly, this paper shows one case where seven student teachers of primary school in their sixth semester were invited to participate. All the student teachers had a minimum of three semesters of practical experience in diverse school settings by the time of the research. Data was generated through four sessions of narrative and art-based techniques. Initially, student teachers constructed individual collages, describing their understanding of inclusive education. Subsequently, they wrote narratives recounting practicum experiences about inclusion and exclusion in school settings. The third phase involved narrative interviews with student teachers grounded in their previously shared stories. Lastly, a collaborative effort culminated in a collective collage, reflecting their common understanding of inclusion derived from shared practicum experiences. Data analysis was conducted holistically, focusing on the content in the narrative productions (Bolívar et al., 2001). Metaphors were used in data analysis to facilitate a nuanced understanding of the individual units and the case. Each student teacher was symbolically represented as a tree, and their practicum experiences were articulated across three layers: the leaves elucidating encounters within school settings, the branches denoting emotional responses to these encounters, and the trunk portraying the crystallisation of practicum experiences into a professional stance on inclusion. Moreover, the teacher education program was metaphorically conceptualised as a forest, comprising a collective of trees interconnected through their roots. Case study as a methodology enables the identification of shared experiences and inherent tensions in the interplay among the student teachers, the school context and the university teacher education program.

The findings reveal a recurrent association between student teachers' practicum experiences and interactions with excluded school students. Student teachers perceive these encounters as "real" contrasted with the "ideal" inclusive discourse learned in their university program. Such experiences impose a notable emotional burden, marked by feelings of surprise, frustration, and a compelling desire for transformative change. These practicum experiences mobilise affects, knowledge and perspectives. Namely, some tensions include: - The struggle to construct a professional identity often oscillates between identifying themselves as students or future teachers, complicating their ability to fully embody the role of agents for inclusion in schools. - The perpetuation of inclusion as an adjustment provided by specialised support exclusively for particular students with difficulties simultaneously coexists with the ideals of inclusion for all. - The personal experiences that pose student teachers or their family members as excluded people and define their current stance on inclusion as teachers. Also, student teachers describe a shortage of opportunities within the teacher education program to reframe and reinterpret these experiences. It is relevant to emphasise that student teachers' encounters with exclusion or inclusion during practicum do not automatically manifest in adopting inclusive teaching practices. This phenomenon is intricately connected to the constraints on the student teachers’ autonomy in schools and the lack of embodied inclusive practicum experiences. Finally, this work discusses the relevance of understanding the process through which student teachers construct knowledge for inclusion in the course of initial teacher education. It is imperative to comprehend how student teachers navigate diverse contexts within universities and schools, gaining insights, constructing knowledge and identifying themselves as teachers engaged with inclusion within the complexity of local, national and international conditions.

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