A Way To Participation, A Look Into Inclusion

Author(s):

Esther Martinez-Figueira(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Poster

Session Information

04 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:

2013-09-11

12:30-14:00

Room:

FUAYE

Chair:

Contribution

This paper is part of a wider research (Martínez, 2011) which aimed to draw a map of inclusive good practices in a Spanish province. New actions may be taken by using this research, in order to face the changes brought by inclusive education. Some of the goals of this work may be highlighted, for example trying to know the characteristics and the diversity of the educational centres, identifying some strong and weak points of the educational hierarchy which could encourage or handicap the change from integration to educational inclusion, and reporting the inclusive educational projects designed at the centres.

The aims mentioned above relate to the certainty that we are still far from answering the question of educational inclusion presented by UNESCO (2005). This type of education refers to how to encourage equity and contribute to a deeper social cohesion, enabling us this way to answer to all the students by means of participating more in the learning process and in the cultural and community activities, and of reducing exclusion inside and outside the educational system. Two interesting ideas emerge from what has just been mentioned. One idea refers to the duty the schools have, to restructure themselves according to the needs of all their students (Ainscow, 1999) in order to be the most efficient means to fight discriminatory attitudes, to build an inclusive society and to reach education for everybody (Parrilla, 2010; Parrilla, Raposo & Martínez, 2011; Raposo, Martínez & Baamonde, 2010). The other idea implies that we cannot forget that sometimes educational exclusion is the prelude for certain ways of social exclusion (Parrilla, 2008).

Thus, we have tried to approach to the different areas of work from which we believe the efforts should start. As Parrilla suggests (2009), these areas are not new and have not been withdrawn from the inclusive aproaches of change. Nevertheless, it is actually believed that they need to be looked at with different eyes and approached with different attitudes, because inclusion demands the introduction of new values into the school, into the classrooms. Inclusion means on one hand the broadening of the concept of normality, which diversifies, and on the other hand it means to learn to learn the difference, since we can hardly learn about it if we don't live with it, if we avoid it or exclude it.

The paper presented here has been developed in Ourense (Spain) taking all this into account. 35 Pre-primary, Primary and Secondary Schools have taken part in it, all of them would be developing some innovation project or training activity related to diversity and they would have been acknowledged for this in their educational community as reference centres of inclusive good practices. We have had the voice of 269 teachers from these centres who have been key in order to do an analysis of educational inclusion.

Method

The research is framed into the compared method since it is developed between the descriptive and the interpretative-explicative level, using a methodology of qualitative features. This way, we use a group of theoretical logical-epistemological and procedural operations which makes of it an almost experimental method and where the specific procedure for the gaining/collection of data was the survey technique. The designed questionnaire revolves around three main points: contextual data, inclusive strategies and practices, and training on inclusive practices. The gained data have been collected by using non-probabilistic, intentional techniques, and are an accidental or causal sample. The sample is then built with the participation of 35 centres in all the province and 269 teachers who teach at these centres. These subjects are teachers at public education centres (65,7%) located in an urban area (54,9%), they are mostly women (61,3%) aged from 30 to 50 years old (66,3%) and over 70% of them have over 10 years of teaching experience. These data match the required characteristics from a scietific point of view, in relation to sufficiency (Kerlinger, 1985) and representativity (Fox, 1981)

Expected Outcomes

This study has meant a thoughtful activity aimed at knowing the specific views the teachers have of the reality which they are part of. The collected data inform that the respondents have inclusion in their minds when they teach, in their methodologies and practices. They also inform of which should be the markers that allow us to detect inclusive good practices, highlighting the attitudes and values of all the educational community which are defined as the integration of everybody in the group, the acceptance of the differences and the normality that comes with this, the equity of opportunities and access, the awareness of change, respect and tolerance, the effort, the enjoyment of heterogeneity. They also highlight participation and collaboration of all the educational community even when evaluating the subject on the whole; and finally the progress of all the students, this is, of their performance and individual progress focused on every student instead of aiming at their skills. This analysis enables us to understand the processes of exclusion and inclusion presented in the educational centres due to the limitations imposed on the students, by society in general and specifically by the educational institution, and how to remove them.

References

Ainscow, M. (1999). Understanding the Development of Inclusive Schools. Narcea: Madrid. Fox, D.J. (1981). El proceso de investigación en educación. Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra. Kerlinger, F.N. (1985). Investigación del comportamiento. Técnicas y metodología. México: Interamericana. Parrilla, A. (2009). ¿Y si la investigación sobre inclusión no fuera inclusiva? Apuntes desde una investigación biográfico-narrativa. En Revista de Educación, 343,101-117. Parrilla, A. (2010). Ética para una investigación inclusiva. Revista Educación Inclusiva. 3 (1), 165-174. Parrilla, A. (dir.) (2008). “Análisis de los procesos de inclusión/exclusión educativa en la educación obligatoria. Desarrollo de proyectos locales de cambio y mejora escolar”. Memoria Técnica para proyectos tipo A y B. Referencia. EDU2008-06511-C02-01. Parrilla, A.; Raposo, M.; Martínez, M.E. (2011). “Inclusive Education as a Community Project: Researching Beyond the School”, comunicación presentada en ECER 2011, Berlín,13 a 16 de septiembre de 2011. Raposo, M.; Martínez, M.E.; Baamonde, M.L. (2010). “Un Proyecto Inclusivo de Mejora Escolar: claves formativas y constitutivas”, comunicación presentada en el I Congreso Internacional: Reinventar la Formación Docente, Málaga, 8 a 10 de noviembre de 2010. UNESCO (2005). Guidelines for inclusión: Ensuring Access to Education for All. París: UNESCO.

Author Information

Esther Martinez-Figueira (presenting / submitting)

University of Vigo, Spain

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