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Gerardo Echeita Sarrionandia. Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid

Received: 01.15.2017. Accepted: 02.15.2017. ISSN: 0210-2773 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17811/rifie.46.2017.17-24

ABSTRACT. This article analyzes the global meaning of the right to inclusive education, which is formally established internationally. Following some basic questions about this issue and their respective answers, the analysis is structured around the meaning, dimensions, and dilemmas faced today by the educational agents responsible for implementing it, particularly in Spain, although many of them are similar in other parts of the world. The flagrant contradiction between what is stated in the regulations and what actually happens in many educational centers, “between what is said and what is done,” generates enormous tensions and emotional distress that negatively affect many vulnerable students and their families.

KEYWORDS: inclusive education, right, dilemmas, contradictions.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the overall meaning which has the inclusive education that internationally is formally established. The analysis of the dimensions regarding inclusive education, besides the dilemmas faced by educational stakeholders responsible for implementing, its organised trough some basic questions and their answer. This analysis is relevant for the Spanish context but also in other countries around de world. The big gap among theory and practices, create enormous tensions and emotional tears that affect very negatively to many vulnerable students and their families.

KEYWORDS: inclusive education, rigths, dilemmas, contradictions.

1. Introduction

Estamos de lleno en el proceso de analizar y debatir en el Congreso de los Diputados y fuera de él, una nueva ley de educación en nuestro país. En este texto presento lo fundamental de la comparecencia que he podido realizar ante la Subcomisión del parlamento que está organizando los trabajos preparatorios para dicho proyecto de ley.

Mi aportación a ese debate se ha centrado en la tarea de señalar la importancia de que la nueva ley de educación responda al compromiso inequívoca y al desafío de tratar de garantizar la equidad educativa, condición necesaria para conseguir, con y por ello, que la educación escolar sea más inclusiva.

Comparto con otros colegas, dentro y fuera de nuestro país (Ainscow, 2016; Echeita, Martín, Simón and Sandoval, 2016, talking about “inclusive education” is nothing more thana perspective from which to analyze the challenges of equity in school education and, therefore, an aspiration embedded in that general principle. In any case, what is clear is that this aspiration for greater equity will not be achieved without countries fulfilling themandate they have received for their education systems to beinclusive.

And I speak of “mandate” not in rhetorical terms, but because that is the commitment formally acquired and undertaken by Spain before several international bodies. The first is before UNESCO, to which we must recognize its role in pointing out the horizon towards which the educational policies of the “Member States” should be oriented. In this regard, I will highlight two unavoidable recent references: what was agreed at the 48th Session of the International Conference on Education promoted by UNESCO/IBE (2008), with the eloquent title: “Inclusive education: the way forward”. The second (UNESCO et al., 2016), the so-called The Incheon Declaration and its Framework for Action for the realization of Sustainable Development Goal 4, by the year 2030, which again has a title relevant to our topic: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

As I will try to explain, inclusive education is not an aspiration that refers exclusively to a specific student population, particularly that of children (and also young people and adults) with disabilities or with learning difficulties of any kind. It is a goal that seeks to help transform educational systems so that ALL students, without restrictions, limitations, or euphemisms regarding that ‘ALL’, have comparable quality opportunities for the full development of their personality, the ultimate aim of all educational systems. However, it is evident, at the same time, that students with specific educational support needs (following the categorization established in the LOMCE), are at greater risk of segregation, marginalization, or school failure, and therefore, it is only fair to pay special attention to ensuring their rights are not relegated.

Within this framework, the “States parties” have also received the mandate from the Committee responsible within the United Nations system for monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN, 2006), ratified by Spain in 2008, to ensure the full fulfillment of the “right to inclusive education” (Art. 24 of the Convention). To facilitate the task of sharing a common frame of reference for what is understood as inclusive education, the Committee responsible for monitoring this Convention has developed a General Comment (No. 4) (UN, 2016), which explains and details the meaning and scope of this right for signatory countries, with the added value of being an authoritative and legitimate interpretation.

This commitment, acquired by signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is a very relevant fact, because it could well be said that it changes the status of this concern; from being understood as a well-intentioned and applicable principle, let’s say, “as far as reasonably possible”, it is now a right, with all its legal and social force (Campoy, 2007; Lema, 2009), and for which the judicial system can and should be invoked, something that organizations such as the Gerard Foundation(1) or Solcom(2) are already doing.

This rights-based perspective confers a very relevant nuance on the analyses that concern us, which should not be overlooked, because if proposals contrary to the meaning of this right to inclusive education were to be made in the law, they could well be considered as direct or indirect acts of discrimination (Lema, 2009).

Finally, and within the framework of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, promoted again by the United Nations (2016) with the hope that “countries and citizens of the world will embark on a new path to improve the lives of people everywhere”, it should be highlighted that, as has already been pointed out, Goal 4 once again emphasizes the strategic importance of working towards: “Ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

Given these freely adopted commitments, it seems clear that we need to question the meaning, scope, and implications of the approach we must take to schooling for it to be “inclusive,” and which the new education law being prepared cannot ignore.

From now on, I will structure this text around some basic questions, the answers to which I believe can help clarify why, and about whom we are talking when we discuss inclusive education, and to better understand the arguments that lead us towards it, as well as its nature and some of the enormous challenges its implementation poses to us all. I anticipate that the most substantive and important aspect of all these questions/answers about inclusive education is that we are dealing with a political matter concerning the kind of society we want to live in (Echeita, 2013; Slee, 2012).

And in relation to that social project, a dimension that is undoubtedly very relevant has to do with Alain Touraine’s (2005) question, “Can we live together?” which we must complement with equally uncomfortable questions: How do we want to do it? In a way that guarantees equity and respect for human diversity within a shared framework of rights and duties? Or by looking indifferently away from the unjust inequalities so often associated with factors such as gender, social origin, ability, sexual orientation, or the place where one lives? Depending on how clear and forceful (or ambiguous) the answer given by society to these questions is, so will be the clear and forceful (or ambiguous) mandate received by “the school” (in a broad sense of the term), and other educational agents, to ensure their educational action is consistent with the indicated social horizon.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised if I say that the mandate received by “the school” until very recently was not that of those who wanted an inclusive society, but rather that of those who have wanted and benefited from a stratified, segregated, and unequal society. However, in light of some recent political events (elections in the U.S., Holland, France…), everything suggests that we are not just talking about the “past,” but also about a very disturbing present.

2. Why do we talk about inclusive education?

The adjective inclusive added to the noun education (Jarque, 2016) tells us that we must work to ensure that the schooling we currently have – heir to ways of thinking and valuing student diversity in terms of exclusionary and hierarchical categories; boys and girls, good and bad students, capable and disabled, white and Roma, native and migrant, “normal and strange”… (Ballard, 2012; Echeita, Simón, López and Urbina, 2014) – is NOT capable of responding equitably with regard to three major tasks:

• First, to welcome ALL students, regardless of their educational needs—because, unless stated otherwise, we all have equal dignity and the right to be and share the common spaces where citizenship is built—.
• Second, to make EVERYONE feel recognized, active participants, and people loved and valued by their peers and their teachers. It happens that when schools today welcome many of those who have been outside for a long time (for example, a good portion of children with disabilities), they do not offer all of them equal opportunities to, in effect, be loved and valued for who they are (not for their proximity or distance from a certain pattern of normality); so that they can build a positive identity and not one that is “deficient” or of lesser value, and so that they feel part of a group and have meaningful friendships and social relationships, thereby warding off the risk of marginalization or, worse still, mistreatment by their peers (Calderón, 2014; Fernández Enguita, Gaete, and Terrén, 2008).
• And third, we talk about inclusive education because the education we see developing daily in educational centers (from early childhood to university) does NOT have enough varied and diversified strategies, organizational forms, and ways of teaching and evaluating (Echeita, Simón, and Sandoval, 2014) to allow ALL students to learn at the highest possible level and performance, and in a personalized way (Coll, 2016), thus moving away from the scourge of high rates of “school and educational failure” that today affects, in some contexts, more than a quarter of the student population (Escudero and Martínez, 2012).

The enormous challenge that inclusive education poses, then, is to equitably articulate for ALL students the three dimensions referred to: accessing or being present in common/mainstream spaces where everyone should be educated; participating, coexisting, and having well-being in accordance with the dignity of every human being; and finally, learning and progressing in the acquisition of basic competencies necessary to achieve a quality adult life, leaving no one behind for personal or social, individual or group reasons.

In short, we need to emphasize the adjective “inclusive” because, without downplaying the progress that has been made, we still have a very exclusionary school system in the form of segregation, marginalization, and/or school failure for many students throughout their educational process.

It could well be said that this adjective is just one more – let’s say “the second to last” for now – of those we have been adding to “education” in itself, as our social ambitions have grown stronger and new social challenges have emerged. Another adjective our education needs, for example, is to contribute to the environmental sustainability of our planet (Echeita and Navarro, 2014; Ecologistas en Acción/MRPs, 2015).

3. Who are we talking about when we talk about inclusive education?

Almost from the beginning, I have anticipated the answer to this question: we are talking about ALL students, without exclusions, restrictions, or euphemisms. That is, we do not talk about ALL to refer to the majority or almost all, but rather it is an absolute ALL: but do you also mean those students who have broad and extensive support needs for their personal and social development? Also, for example, students with intellectual or developmental disabilities? Yes, them too. Or are they perhaps people whom we should not consider with equal dignity and rights as the rest? (Urien, 2017). Is it written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that they are not? No, and that is what, as I pointed out at the beginning, has been ratified by theConvention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(UN, 2006). It is crucial to remember that we are talking about ALL students being necessary to prevent, first and foremost, the risk of continuing with educational policies, like many of the current ones, whose equity actions are based on categorizing vulnerable students, focusing only on them and on the schools where compensatory actions and resources are mostly allocated. Incidentally, this is a very common way of thinking in other policies that seek to reduce exclusion. For example, in the labor field (Castell, 2004).

However, it is evident that we are facing a more than difficult process of educational (and social) transformation that will take time and require great effort. It should not surprise us, then, that those who have most acutely and harshly experienced processes of segregation, marginalization, and poor/little learning are the first to demand inclusive policies and practices for themselves. This is undoubtedly the case for persons with disabilities (Campoy, 2013), who have made the banner of (educational, social, labor) inclusion their emblem and leitmotif(3).

These analyses should serve to highlight the need not to identify the international movement and the challenges towards a more inclusive education as solely belonging to that specific group or set of students that, under current legislation in Spain, we recognize as students withspecial educational needs.

Doing so would be as inadequate, unjust, and unproductive as leaving them in the background again because we are talking about ALL students, or because there are other equally vulnerable students who are more numerous (for example, students living in impoverished social contexts), or because their reality is more concerning given the social repercussions associated with their failure/dropout from school (delinquency, drug abuse, marginality…).

4. What are the main challenges for the development of the right to inclusive education?

Adopting a rights-based perspective in inclusive education necessarily means working to achieve the conditions that make its enjoyment possible. Otherwise, what is effectively done is to deny the effective exercise of these rights. These school conditions are not, and cannot be, the ones that have existed in the “school grammar” of our education system (Echeita, Simón, Sandoval, 2016; Simón, et al., 2016). Therefore, the main challenge, in my opinion, that must be undertaken within the framework of the new law is to create the conditions for educational centers to be capable ofinitiating and sustaining systemic processes of educational improvement and innovation.to move inclusive education from the realm of wishes to the reality of classrooms.

For educational centers, this collective endeavor has two non-negotiable tasks behind it:

• Firstly, to recognize the multiple barriers (a set of factors that limit or can limit the presence, learning, and participation of students) that currently exist in educational cultures, policies, and practices (derived from old ways of thinking and acting, Echeita, Simón, López, and Urbina, 2014). Centers should be called upon to deeply review their educational projects and institutional programs through the lens of this analysis.
  
• The second task is to transform these barriers into facilitators, on these same levels, of an educational action capable of personalizing teaching, adapting to student diversity, and responding equitably to their educational needs and aspirations. This requires knowledge not only about what to do (Coll, 2016), strictly speaking, but also about how to implement the necessary changes, that is, about how to initiate and sustain (in the long term) the required educational changes, a body of knowledge that is articulated around research on the effectiveness of school improvement (Murillo, Krichesky, 2012; Murillo, Krichesky, 2015).

The important thing is that today we have the knowledge, experience, and capacity to carry out these two tasks and, in fact, the specialized literature is full of rigorous knowledge to guide us in this process. Two examples will suffice;Booth, and Ainscow, (2015) and UNESCO/BIE (2016). These are insights that converge on a key idea: it is possible to do so. There are educational administrations, schools, and teachers who have been able to get started and begin to travel the path that lies between their ambitions and their reality. They are not perfect, nor are they eternally so or in all circumstances, but neither are they anecdotal.

But we also know that knowing is not enough. Indeed, the truth is that we have knowledge, but what is not clear is whether we have sufficient political will (at the different levels; national, regional, and local where it is distributed) to mobilize the available knowledge and to confront the multiple turbulences and resistances that this process will generate in established educational systems.

The systemic nature of this process alerts us to the need to generate many conditions and policies that must align coherently for progress to be made towards the stated goal; conditions and policies regarding funding, infrastructure (not least, in relation to the accessibility of physical and virtual spaces); regarding curriculum review (less overloaded with content and more mindful that what is considered essential contributes to the development of all intelligences/competencies that should be taught and not just some); regarding the organization of teaching – in tasks as sensitive as the transition processes between stages or the criteria for promotion and certification, if the latter were essential, which not everyone defends (4) – etc.

I am not in a position to analyze them all, but I can emphasize some essential ones:

• Establish a shared vision, strongly rooted in a clear set of inclusive educational values and principles (Booth, 2006; Booth and Ainscow, 2015; Escudero, 2006; Extebarría, 2005):
  • The intrinsic dignity of every human being above the differences that shape our diversity.
  • The justice that guards against discrimination and unequal treatment.
  • The beneficent action: “to seek the good of those for whom I feel responsible and the care, in particular, of the most vulnerable.”
  • The responsibility, to undertake the changes or improvements that reduce injustices and promote desired values.
• To extend a strong capacity among all members of the educational community to reflect on the “systems of practices” in which shared values should be rooted and which, therefore, sustain the “moral cultures” that could well be called inclusive (Puig Rovira et al., 2012).
• To develop solid school leadership in which three basic dimensions converge:
  • a pedagogical leadership, a distributed leadership and a leadership for social justice (Bolívar, López, and Murillo, 2013). Leadership that, ultimately, allows for the creation and maintenance of the internal conditions that support inclusive cultures (Murillo, Krichesky, Castro, and Hernández, 2010).
• Building strong and consistent cultures, policies, and collaborative practicess a varios niveles; dentro del centro escolar y entre centros escolares; entre el profesorado y entre el alumnado, y entre unos y otros con las familias y el contexto local (Ainscow y West, 2008).
• Formar desde el inicio a todo el profesorado con una firme convicción de que “la capacidad de aprender de todos sus estudiantes puede cambiar y ser cambiada a mejor como resultado de lo que él/ella puede hacer en el presente” (Hart et al., 2004).
  • Es la concepción “transformadora” de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje, opuesta a la visión determinista que se traduce en una concepción sobre la capacidad de aprendizaje condicionada genéticamente y que se refleja en el C.I. de cada estudiante.
• Garantizar que todo el profesorado (tanto el que esté llamado a enseñar en educación infantil, como en educación primaria y en educación secundaria), egrese de su formación inicial, con las competencias necesarias para sentirse y desempeñarse como profesor o profesora de todo el alumnado, algo que no parece que estemos consiguiendo a pesar de las reformas recientes en sus planes de formación (Echeita, 2012; Izusquiza, Echeita, y Simón, 2015).
• Una formación inicial y permanente que debe servir para afianzar las competencias emocionales propias de un profesorado empático that knows and wants to listen to its students, who trusts in their ability to get involved in their learning process and in their ability to tell us plainly what makes them feel bad and not learn (Vaello, 2009; Susinos and Ceballos, 2012).
• Learning to implement an institutional development that is well thought out and planned that, therefore, can be sustainable over time and capable of withstanding the innumerable turbulences of a process constantly threatened and, in any case, subject to the changing circumstances of its own “ecosystem”: the socioeconomic crisis, the lack of resources and support, demoralization. (Ainscow, Dyson, West and Goldrick, 2013).

These conditions, in particular, are not a “miracle” that some schools receive and others do not, or “personal qualities” that some teachers have by chance. All of them are capacities that can be learned and accessible to most teachers through continuous training, advice, and institutional support. I have no doubt that if the new law does not prioritize these actions of permanent training, psychopedagogical advice, and support for schools in their improvement and innovation processes, we will once again face the frustration of seeing some good intentions unfulfilled. A frustration that, moreover, is quite common on all five continents (Artiles, Kokleski, and Waitoller, 2015).

Certainly, implementing these types ofsupport policies for improvementis costly and quite difficult when, at the same time, it is very easy to turn thevictimsof its absence —that is, the “bad students” that Marchesi (2004) spoke of— into culprits for their misbehavior, marginalization, or school failure.

5. Collaboration and support to generate hope.

I believe that throughout this text, I have not stopped pointing out at opportune moments that this great challenge of moving towards aeducación más inclusiva, es un proceso complejo, éticamente controvertido, difícil y cuajado de dilemas. Soy idealista respecto a la meta que perseguimos, pero vivo con los pies en la tierra y conozco bien las turbulencias y dificultades que este proceso acarrea.

Por ello, comparto plenamente con otros autores que el principal ingrediente en estas circunstancias, para no sucumbir al desaliento que estas dificultades acarrean, es emocional. No es otro que construir colectivamente un fuerte sentido de esperanza. Pero entendida esta no como un sentimiento melifluo de que “las cosas, tarde o temprano, irán bien”, sino como la capacidad de “no entrar en pánico ante tales dificultades” (Fullan, 2001). Y esa emoción se construye sobre la base de una fuerte cultura colaborativa al interior de los centros escolares, entre los centros escolares y de estos con su comunidad local. Esta es una de las condiciones que anteriormente he señalado y sobre la que creo necesario decir algo más.

Esa cultura colaborativa se construye con políticas y prácticas de muy distinto tipo. Ya es un tópico (pero no tanto una realidad generalizada), hablar de la importancia del trabajo cooperativo entre el alumnado. Una colaboración y apoyo entre el alumnado que se debe construir con conocimiento y paciencia, que admite muchos formats (cooperative groups, peer tutoring, interactive groups, student mediators, …) and which does not tolerate improvisations or sudden impulses from one-off actions that are not sustained over time (Pujolas, Lago and Naranjo, 2013; Topping, Buchs, Duran and Van Keer, 2017).

Less common, but no less important, are the strategies of collaboration and mutual support among teachers when, however, we know well the role that, for example, strategies known as lesson study (“lessons study”) can play in designing and implementing inclusive educational practices (Messiou, et al., 2016).

Finally, and without intending to be exhaustive in this regard, it is obvious that families are a thread and a central knot in weaving this collaborative culture. A great deal of emotional intelligence and clear models of relationships with families are needed for them to become the main ally of teaching teams when initiating and sustaining inclusive educational projects (Simón, Giné and Echeita, 2016).

Reinforce this collaborative culture within schools and networking between schools and between them and their educational and local community (Parrilla, Núñez and Sierra, 2013), is called to be a critical strategy in this process. What is also clear to me is that this collaborative culture clashes with the growing trends to stimulate competitiveness between schools (as between Autonomous Communities or countries) through the ill-suited role that national and international performance evaluations are playing. I believe it is possible to combine accountability with policies of collaboration and networking that facilitate the improvement of equity. The work developed by Professor Mel Ainscow, through the “Great Manchester” project is an inspiring policy from which much can be learned (Ainscow, 2016).

6. Dilemmas and setbacks in inclusive education

From what has been said so far, one might deduce a, to some extent, positive assessment of the development of inclusive education in our country. Above all, we have seen that inclusive education has gone from being a principle to a right, and this change in status will ultimately be a determining factor for the better.

There is no doubt that, on the other hand, many schools throughout the country have been adopting more inclusive policies and practices, showing through their daily work that, as I said before, it is possible to do it.

And there is no doubt that, for example, in terms of presence in mainstream schools of the most vulnerable students, more than significant progress has been made: almost no child is left unschooled today and has learning opportunities from age 3 to 16/18; there are no longer segregated schools for girls, nor for Roma boys and girls or those who come from other countries, and among those students considered to have special educational needs, whose usual destination was to be schooled in segregated centers (Special Education Classrooms or Schools, CEE), today the rates ofschool inclusionstand, on average, around 70/80%, although it is true that with significant variability between Autonomous Communities (MECD, 2015).

If we consider that, in Germany, for example, or in the Netherlands, these same students are still mostly schooled in Special Schools, it would be unfair not to recognize these facts as positive. It is true that situations of bullying among peers continue to resist diminishing, but also that “the values of a sense of belonging to the educational center among Spanish students are the highest of all countries participating in PISA” (5).

Someone might say, then, that we have reasons to smile. But I believe that we also have many reasons for concern and, above all, some families, in particular—guarantors of their children’s rights—have nothing to celebrate and much to demand and lament (Doménech, 2017).

Someone said of love that “if it doesn’t grow, it shrinks”. Perhaps the same can be said of the commitment to more inclusive education. And at this moment, my impression is that decrece. Decrece porque no crecen (más bien están ausentes o son muy débiles), las políticas de las administraciones dirigidas a promover, financiar, acompañar y sostener los amplios y sistémicos procesos de mejora escolar e innovación educativa de los que precisa, sí o sí, el desarrollo de una educación inclusiva.

Sin estos, solo cabe esperar que los centros que se incorporen a este compromiso lo hagan con proyectos educativos inclusivos incompletos, débiles y, a la larga, fallidos. Centros que, como ya ocurre en la actualidad, se comprometen con “la inclusión” de algunos, pero no con la de otros alumnos o alumnas por ser “especiales” o porque sus necesidades educativas requieren de complejos apoyos; centros que “incluyen” en educación infantil y primaria, pero que luego “invitan”, sic, a buena parte de ese mismo alumnado a marchar cuando llega la temida secundaria (Doménech, 2017). O centros de secundaria donde esos alumnos y alumnas más vulnerables, están viviendo auténticas situaciones de marginación y, en el mejor de los casos, aprendiendo poco.

Y como la capacidad de respuesta inclusiva de los centros no mejora, lo que aumenta es la proliferación de normas, medidas, dispositivos y centros especiales, más o menos segregadores y excluyentes; para “atender a la diversidad”, como eufemísticamente se denominan. Y si llegado el caso, alguno de estos “dispositivos” funciona bien y ofrecen una respuesta educativa digna y aceptable, o en su caso una “segunda oportunidad” (AA. VV, 2017) para entrar al mundo adulto y laboral con menos riesgo, entonces hacen, a la larga, un flaco favor a la mejora de la equidad en los centros ordinarios, pues estos dejan de sentir la presión para el cambio y, además, pueden justificar que no es necesario ese esfuerzo porque objetivamente es en esos dispositivos/grupos/aulas/centros “especiales” o de “second chance” (E2O) where these students learn and are emotionally better, which is, in many cases, true, at least during that time of schooling.

Within this panorama, many families of these students suffer and face a moral dilemma that emotionally burns them, particularly in the cases of students we consider withspecial educational needs. A case in point:

We will be invisible. (Published on February 15, 2017 in El Margen)Areswill leave mainstream school at the end of the term, if we manage to get a place at the Special Education Center we want.

We believe in inclusion, but inclusion doesn’t believe in us. We have rights-guaranteeing laws with exclusionary budgets that automatically turn the laws into exclusionary ones. We have goodwill, desire, enthusiasm, but often everything else is missing. And everything else, often, is too much.

We believe in inclusion, but not at any cost. We believe in inclusion if everyone (society, school, laws, budgets, people …) rows in the same direction: that of including those who are already here, even if they are different.

We are leaving mainstream education with conviction, though sadly. Sadly because the system, for children with the difficulties Ares has, includes you with one hand, while showing you the exit door with the other.

Ares will disappear from his environment. The one that belongs to him. He will stop learning some things and teaching many more to those around him. The system will achieve greater uniformity. And make us invisible. (In El Margen. Blog: https://enelmargenn.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/sere-mos-invisibles/)

As Ares’ family rightly reflects, they, like others, had rejoiced at the news that their children had the right to quality inclusive education. They have likely attended a conference, congress, or seminar on the topic, where someone, perhaps like me, explained and broke down what that right means, making them feel that their child’s future could be hopeful. But the truth is that it is not for many (although it has been for others).

And now many of them don’t know what to do, and some of us don’t know what to tell them. Should they remain in mainstream schools where a quality educational response tailored to their children’s specific needs is not being provided? Should they withdraw to a special education center where they might, at least, be calmer and better “attended” provisionally? Should they fight for their rights or resign themselves to the situation, knowing, in any case, that “legal battles are costly in time and money” and that time passes without waiting for the resolution of these dilemmas? Should they think about their “childhood today” or their “future as adult citizens,” in a society that wishes it were inclusive?

I understand that some of these families may reproach us academics for not deeply engaging with their children’s present, while, on the other hand, we make their concerns and aspirations the content of our future proposals through our research and publications.

But we also know that change processes take a long time, and while they arrive with some solidity (if they arrive!), the poor conditions for the schooling of some students (whose personal characteristics are particularly challenging in relation to the “existing school grammar”) would generate continuous distress for them, their teachers, and their classmates, whose rights also cannot be forgotten. One understands that even those responsible for educational policies committed to this goal may be fearful of more inclusive proposals.

Something similar happens to some guidance counselors who work particularly in the early intervention, preschool, and primary education stages; they know they are participants in a process of discrimination (the one that obliges them by mandate of established norms to prepare reports and schooling assessments through which some students are referred to Special Education Centers), something that is contrary to what is established in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and also to their convictions and their professional code of ethics. Obviously, others live without worries, settled in their old guidance models and practices, and this tension doesn’t even faze them.

I am not very clear on what to do and I also feel stunned by these dilemmas. But I am clear that all of us, not just as educators but as citizens, should be informed of the contradiction of having established with all the rigor of the law a right of great significance for society (the right to inclusive education) and then knowing that not only is it not being met, but we could be at clear risk of going backward and turning it into charity or “a discard”:

“2. m. Thing that, due to being used or for any other reason, is not useful to the person for whom it was made.” (RAE Dictionary).

Have we gone too far in trying to bring the dream of inclusive education closer to our classrooms, particularly in secondary education centers? Should we recalibrate this goal? That is, inclusive education. Should it only be a limited aspiration for some of the many vulnerable students, for some time, in some schools that are voluntarily willing to do so, and obviously, in some rich countries?

Shall we tell the families who are fighting a vital battle for their children’s right to inclusive education that their fight is “utopian” and that they should resign themselves to the situation of oppression and disadvantage they have had to live through?

Inclusive education; smiles and tears.

7. Notes

1. Gerard Foundation: http://www.fundaciogerard.org/
2. Solcom; https://asociacionsolcom.org/
3. See the case, for example, of the associative movement of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, initially (1964) grouped around the acronym FEAPS (National Federation of Associations for Subnormals) and currently (since 2016), under the slogan Plena Inclusión: http://www.plenainclusion.org/.
4. See Julio Carabaña’s opinion on the matter: http://eldiariodelaeducacion.com/blog/2017/05/16/julio-carabana-defiende-la-eliminacion-del-titulo-de-eso/.
5. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA2015-Students-Well-being-Country-note-Spain-Spanish.pdf.

8. References

• AA. VV. (2017) Second chance schools. Topic of the month. Notebooks of Pedagogy, 478, 46-79.
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