In this workshop, we seek to enable participants to experience and value the contributions of the encounter between narrative studies and art-based research as a methodological alternative to explore inclusive education from a social justice approach. The workshop is based on the reflections from a research project on the practicum experiences of primary pre-service teachers from Chilean universities. In this project, the storytelling and collage-making allow us to explore the experiential entanglement of exclusion and inclusion beyond common sense discourses about inclusive education. The workshop seeks to discuss the proposal’s methodological contributions and supports researchers in experiencing the methodology as participants.

The international interest in inclusive education as a fundamental right has increased research in the area (Tekin-Bozkurt & Yilmaz-Özturk, 2022). However, its increase does not strictly mean the development of inclusive research, which prioritises collaboration and active participation of those responsible for transforming school realities (Echeita & Simón, 2024). Conversely, research in the area has been questioned due to its controversial effects. Studies are often predictable and decontextualised, focused on recording school actors’ negative attitudes, contributing to aggravating exclusion mechanisms (Slee, 2012).

Literature in the field has shown the importance of understanding the phenomenon's complexity and constructing situated knowledge that includes diverse experiences. For example, it has been highlighted the relevance of attending to teachers' perspectives about the challenges they address in practice (Eblie Trudel et al., 2021) and considering students’ voices who face situations of exclusion (Messiou et al., 2024). In this respect, expressive and participatory research would allow us to inquire about these experiences from trusting relationships that contribute to more transparent reflections, as our research has indicated.

Our previous research (Author, 2022) has led us to understand inclusive education as an intersubjective experience. In this sense, we understand inclusive education as a lived, embodied, and intersubjective experience associated with a sense of belonging, acceptance, and value occurring in different educational or social contexts (Haegele & Maher, 2023). In addition, understanding education as an intersubjective experience means recognising that, beyond the competencies, all school actors can get involved in -inclusive- educational praxis since they are subjects in co-construction (Biesta, 1994). This understanding poses research challenges and ethical discussions, motivating us to explore alternative methodological paths, which we share in this workshop.

In this session, we suggest focusing on the contributions of the integration and productive dialogue between narrative studies and art-based research. Conjugating visual and narrative languages ​​moves into the experiences' interstices and can mobilise new dimensions and meanings (Ramallo & Porta, 2020). Furthermore, integrating artistic self-expression and telling stories allows researchers to capture what is ineffable or challenging to translate into words (Hernández, 2008), apprehending those sensations, emotions, and affects usually invisible in research.

Even though we highlight this approach's contribution to research on inclusive education, we will promote the participants' discussion of how to translate it into other educational fields pertinently. The above contributes to an opening dialogue with other researchers from different territories interested in expanding methodological, epistemological, and political horizons in educational research. To this aim, we pose the guiding question: How can the methodological encounter between narrative studies and art-based research contribute to understanding the diversity of experiences and contexts coexisting in educational research?

The workshop has been inspired by the contributions of narrative inquiry and art-based research, particularly storytelling and collage-making. Firstly, storytelling has transformed research on schooling from more traditional research perspectives to highlight actors' experiences. It contributes to school actors finding their ways of naming and narrating events within educational settings from their interpretations, putting in the centre their subjectivities and what is happening to them with these events (Suárez et al., 2021). We are especially interested in delving into the affective dimension of experience with the workshop participants due to its value in mobilising sensitive knowledge production, which is critical considering the complexity of school space (Casal & Néspolo, 2019). Secondly, we have chosen to complement the proposal through collage-making. Collage constitutes an alternative form of representation and analysis of what is experienced. As an art piece, participants can create and observe it, which may produce multiple affections. Being touched by this exercise constitutes a situated knowledge capable of inspiring actions and changes for social justice (Yuen, 2016). The workshop's experimental methodology will facilitate collective reflection and mutual learning through the participants' creative production. The session will begin with a brief contextualisation of the topic addressed and the research that frames the proposal. Next, we will motivate participants to produce a personal collage based on their experiences -rather than conceptual formulations- based on the question: what does inclusive education mean to you? After making the collage, we will invite attendees to think about and share a research experience that exemplifies what they represented in their collage. Finally, there will be a round of conversation in which participants can share their collages and stories, favouring the discussion about the political, ethical and methodological scopes and challenges of this proposal.

The combination of narrative inquiry and art-based methods has substantially impacted our research project working with pre-service teachers. First, this proposal allows participants to express complex, difficult, and seldom-voiced experiences of exclusion, discrimination, and violence in diverse languages. Second, the sensitive and embodied nature of the proposal permits participants to connect with their own stories and educational experiences and place such experiences in the broader interwoven stories and power relationships in society and culture. Third, it contributes to participants' grasping the indeterminate and unfinished nature of the inclusive education project and constructing new meanings from pieces of pre-existing images and words. Instead of being understood as conclusions, the described ideas are starting points that seek to open new reflections and actions of those who will participate in the workshop. We hope participating in the workshop will encourage researchers to feel involved in the collective challenge of building critical research to transform education for social justice. We highlight that education research should not refer to what happens to others. Instead, as Pérez de Lara (2020) argues, research should embrace the capacity to be affected, acknowledging the existing differences in ourselves and others.

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