Archivo

Citizens’ conversations about inclusive schools

Coordinators: Ignacio Calderón Almendros and Mª Teresa Rascón Gómez. Collection: Horizons-Education.
Authorship: Herminia Asencio Postigo, Luz del Valle Mojtar Mendieta, Mariana Alonso Briales, Florencio Cabello Fernández Delgado, José Manuel de Oña Cots, Jesús J. Moreno Parra, Arasy González Milea, Cristina Redondo Castro, Cristina Vega Díaz and Eduardo S. Vila Merino

First edition: September 2020. © Ignacio Calderón Almendros and Mª Teresa Rascón Gómez (Coords.) © For this edition: Ediciones OCTAEDRO, S.L. Bailén, 5 – 08010 Barcelona. Telephone: 93 246 40 02.www.octaedro.com – octaedro@octaedro.com.

Total or partial reproduction of this work is possible free of charge by indicating the reference of the copyright holders. Commercial use or derivative works are not permitted. ISBN: 978-84-18348-57-0. Cover and back cover photographs: Paula Verde. Design and production: Octaedro Editorial.

Content

Presentation Analysis and proposals for an Education Law committed to inclusion and equity

1. Guarantee the schooling of all children in the same schools and classrooms.
2. Elimination of schooling reports and modification of the procedures for preparing psycho-educational reports.
3. Flexibilize the curriculum and promote the autonomy of educational centers to generate quality equitable and inclusive education, with the guarantee of human rights.
   • Develop educational institutions as learning communities.
   • Schools as spaces for life and coexistence. Education beyond the classroom.
   • Contribute to creating spaces for collaborative work and dialogic exchange among families, students, and teachers to foster educational processes that occur at home and at school.
   • Bring initial and ongoing teacher training closer to the reality of educational centers, in order to ensure the development of more inclusive practices.
   • Dignify the teaching profession and provide these professionals with the necessary support and resources to make their workplaces more inclusive.
4. As a closing remark

They have participated in the Conversations

Abril García; Adriana Barrios; Aime Apaza, Alberto Sánchez; Alejandra Correa; Alejandro Blanco; Alejandro Calleja; Alejandro Pérez; Alessandra Molina; Alicia García Canizalez; Alicia Lajo Alma R. Souza; Almuna Herrera; Alonso Búa; Amaia González; Ana Carla Sant; Ana de Ramón; Ana Ferrer; Ana Laura Sales; Ana Mª Mitoire; Ana Robles; Ana Sánchez; Ana Santamaría; Angélica Bermúdez; Antón Fontao; Antonio Ortiz; Araceli Arellano; Begoña Briongos; Begoña Llorens; Belén Armenteros; Belén Jurado; Belén Padilla; Blanca Roig; Candelaria Mendizábal; Carina Cravero; Carina L. Gómez; Carlos Mati-Mayans; Carlos Roldán; Carlos Sandoval; Carmen Gordillo; Carmen Lázaro; Carmen Mates; Carmen Máximo; Carmen Moreno; Carmen Saavedra; Carolina Necco; Catalina Pérez; Celeste Segovia; Celia Moreno; Cinta Rodríguez; Clara Paracuellos; Claudia Gasparini; Consuelo Coloma; Cristina Martínez; Cristóbal Calero; Daniel Tomás; Daniela Parraga; Daría Borrás; David Diéguez; Deisi Llerena; Delfina Bañobre; Delfina Galicchio; Denise Moschetti; Diana Nieto; Edorta Cuesta; Edson Castañeda; Eduardo Figueroa; Elena Miranda; Elena Varela; Elia Nava; Elisangela Silfa-Santa; Empar Reig; Enrique Moreno; Estefanía Álvarez; Estela Martín; Esther Colodrón; Esther Cumillas; Esther Martín; Eva Betbesé; Eva Mª Fernández; Federico Waitoller; Fernanda Valdés; Francis García; Francisco Servín; Francisco X. Pulido; Gador Cantón; García Díaz; Gema García; Georgina Trías; Griselda Vela; Guadalupe Gerónimo; Haniel Pérez; Ignacio Haya; Ilse Gutiérrez; Inmaculada Montes; Irene Nicolás; Irune García; Isabel Fernández; Jeanette A. García; Jesús Soldevilla; Joan Mena; Jorge Arbués; Jorge Bueno; Jorge Osa; Jorgelina Chale; José Julián García; José Luis Aguilar; Juan E. Mati-Mayans; Juan Fontanillas; Juana A. Miguel; Juana Fernández; Julia Cervantes; Julia Gozálbez; Julieta Fernández; Katherine Britto; Lara Aylén; Laura Alvea; Leisly K. Méndez; Leo Osa; Letty López; Liliana Arciniegas; Lola Signes; Lourdes Úbeda; Lucía Enrique; Lucía Melchor; Luis Alberto Duchitanga; Mª Adela Camacho; Mª Alejandra Barbar; Mª Angélica Valencia; Mª Carmen Camarero; Mª Carmen Vinagre; Mª Constanza Urricariet; Mª Dolores Hernández; Mª Emilia Pérez; Mª Eugenia González; Mª Fuensanta Solano; Mª Guadalupe Saldaña; Mª Inés Servino; Mª José Carcelén; Mª José Gómez Corell; Mª Luz Rey; Mª Patricia Biront; Mª Valeria Mattevi; Mª Victoria Rodríguez; Macarena Casado; Macarena García; Maite Gavilán; Manuel Pérez Ruiz; Mar Oliver; Mar Vidal Fernández; Marcela De La Vía; Marcelina De La Vega; Marcelo Gil; Marcos Osa; Marcos Redondo; Margarita Rúa; María A. Martín; María Agustina Dilernia; María Carrero; María G. Martínez; María García; María Lesaca; María Rodríguez; Mariana Rosa; Maribel García; Maricel Valladares; Mariela Diep; Marina Sampietro; Mario Cervantes; Mario Rueda; Mariola Rueda; Marisa R. Jara; Marta Casal; Marta Cebrián; Marta Martín; Marta Sebastián; Martha Herrmannsdörfer; Mayra Escorza; Mercedes Alonso; Mercedes López; Mercedes Viola; Mirela Maximet; Mirian Cinquegrani; Mirna L. Estigarribia; Mónica Coronado; Mónica Estacio; Mónica Martínez; Mónica Villaran; Mónica Vives; Naomi Piñeiro; Natalia Banega; Norma Albeira; Norma Bertello; Norma Jimenez; Núria Sala; Odet Moliner; Olivia Dávila; Orlando Zárate; Óscar Clavell; Pablo Núñez; Paola Olmos; Patricia Molnar; Patricia Solis; Paula Parra; Paula Suárez; Paula Verde Francisco; Paulo Ocampo; Pedro Cadejo; Pedro J. Tudela; Pepi Bohorquez; Pilar Rodríguez; Polonia Ramírez; Rafi Martínez; Raquel Simarro; Raúl López Reyes; Rebeca Castiglione; Rebeca Estefano; Rejane L. Amarante; Rocío Del Valle Hernández; Rocío González; Rocío Iglesias; Rocío Lao; Rosa Mª Llorente; Ruth Candela; Sandra C. Polo; Sandra Fernández; Sandra Zúñiga; Saúl Mucino; Sergio Avalos; Silvana Corso; Silvana Guía; Silvana Medina; Silvia García; Silvina Estrella; Sofía Barranco; Soledad Mochales; Susana González; Susana Jiménez; Susana Pérez; Susana Rojas; Susana Ruiz Seisdedos; Teresa Iglesias; Verónica Calasich; Verónica López; Virginia Ramos; Virginia Román; Viviana Dial; Ximena Sánchez; Yamina Laffué; Yliana Zeballos; Yolanda Adame; Yolanda Medellín.

Presentation

This document is the result of a series of virtual meetings held under the title “Conversations about the (inclusive) school”, have been developed between May and June 2020, as a tool to carry out a necessary public debate, especially now that the Educational Law Bill is going through parliament. An initiative in times of confinement, which has been a valuable contribution to society and whose objective has been to debate the current educational reality and project the future of the education system, to make it accessible to all people, through the contributions of different groups that participate and influence the school: families, students, teachers, management teams, professionals, researchers, and political representatives. Each of these weekly dialogic meetings was viewed by those who would later participate in the following ones, in a kind of ongoing conversation. This exercise in listening has been fundamental to the process. The meetings have had a significant impact online, with tens of thousands of views.

The initiative, which has had more than two hundred and fifty participants, stems from the research project Emerging Narratives on Inclusive Schooling from the Social Model of Disability. Resistance, resilience, and social change (RTI2018-099218-A-I00, funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities), whose principal investigators are the professorsIgnacio Calderón Almendros and Mª Teresa Rascón Gómez, both belonging to the Department of Theory and History of Education and M.I.D.E. of the University of Málaga.

The debates have been broadcast on social media via Facebook and YouTube. The audiovisual material is available at https://bit.ly/30ojGCR, and includes the following sessions:

• Family experiences in schools. Between wanting and being able to.
• The school we have and the one we want. Students speak.
• Working in a school that must be for all citizens. The professionals’ perspective.
• Educational Research and Inclusive Education. From what we know to what we do.
• Leading teams to build inclusive schools. Difficulties, achievements, and challenges.
• Challenging inequalities in school. Inclusive Education on the political agenda.

This document aims to report on some of the main debates held. With the intention of turning the various contributions gathered in each of the sessions into proposals, the organizers of the dialogues have prepared this report full of proposals for progress towards an inclusive education system. The document does not aim to address all the needs of the system, but rather focuses on the main content blocks raised in the public conversations held, and offers valuable proposals to try to address them in the new Education Law.

Analysis and proposals for an Education Law committed to inclusion and equity

The main content blocks extracted from the conversations are the following:

1. Guarantee the schooling of all children in the same schools and classrooms.
2. Elimination of schooling reports and modification of the procedures for preparing psycho-educational reports.
3. Flexibilize the curriculum and promote the autonomy of educational centers to generate quality equitable and inclusive education, with the guarantee of human rights.
4. Develop educational institutions as learning communities.
5. Schools as spaces for life and coexistence. Education beyond the classroom.
6. Contribute to creating spaces for collaborative work and dialogic exchange among families, students, and teachers to foster educational processes that occur at home and at school.
7. Bring initial and ongoing teacher training closer to the reality of educational centers, in order to ensure the development of more inclusive practices.
8. Dignify the teaching profession and provide these professionals with the necessary support and resources to make their workplaces more inclusive.

In the following pages, each of the listed content blocks will be developed and justified, and concrete proposals will be made to advance in each of them.

“Inclusion is a moral imperative. Debating the benefits of inclusive education is like debating the benefits of human rights.” (UNESCO, GEM Report 2020)

“The videos you have shared with us about what they talk about, what they are based on, fundamentally, is the right to education. What we should be reflecting on is basically the right to education: whether all children in this country, regardless of their social, economic, physical, or psychological circumstances, have the same right to education. And we believe that unfortunately, we have not achieved a law that guarantees the right to education for all children.” (Joan Mena, spokesperson for the Confederal Parliamentary Group of Unidas Podemos-En Comú Podem-Galicia en Común in the Commission of Education and Vocational Training of the Congress of Deputies)

🎥 Conversations about the (inclusive) school: Politics.

“We are facing a golden opportunity […]. We have before us […] a draft of a new education law, which is in the full process of submitting partial amendments in the Congress of Deputies, and […] a consensual and agreed-upon law by broad groups […] should emerge, one that is not dependent on the changes of government in power.” (Óscar Clavell, spokesperson for the Popular Parliamentary Group in the Congress of Deputies’ Education and Vocational Training Committee)

🎥 Conversations about the (inclusive) school: Politics.

1. Guarantee the schooling of all children in the same schools and classrooms

If something has become evident in these meetings is that the current school is not guaranteeing the right to inclusive education. Special education centers and specific classrooms in mainstream schools do not respond to this right, but rather represent a breach of a first-order right: as established by theOffice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in its 2013 Annual Report, “the right to education is a right to inclusive education.” In other words, we are talking about a Fundamental Human Right recognized by the UN.

The requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Spain in 2008, as well as the General Comment No. 4 (2016) and the Report on the Spanish Education System (2018)carried out by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), show that in an inclusive education system, two parallel education systems cannot coexist, but rather a single mode of schooling that responds to the educational needs of all students. This requires new organizational measures, but also a reinterpretation of the meaning and social function of the school, which assumes the need to offer quality education for all students, whatever their characteristics. This has become very clear in the recent International Report on Education 2020 from UNESCO: under the title “Inclusion and Education: All without exception,” it makes it clear that education cannot make exceptions and that “inclusive education is a process that contributes to achieving the goal of social inclusion.” In other words, the objective of inclusive education goes far beyond the school.

“So, my question is: what are they going to school for? Because I ask myself this question every single day, especially in the last 3 years. Especially since the transition to secondary school […]. I chose the same school for my son that his siblings went to and his neighbors go to. I think that if you separate in school, you separate for your entire life.” (Carmen Saavedra, Mother of a secondary school student in A Coruña) 

🎥 Carmen Saavedra – You separate for your entire life

Inclusive education is the seed of an inclusive society. Only a society that has learned to live with differences and value them will be able to take responsibility for a society that cares for the well-being of all its members. Therefore, because it constitutes the synthesis of educational ambitions, it has been positioned as theSustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4)of the 2030 Agenda: “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030. We have a decade to make it a reality, and it is evident that a project of this magnitude cannot be resolved with the Fourth Additional Provision of the current draft Law, but must be a core element of it, even if it is later developed more broadly in another Organic Law as it is a Fundamental Right.

For this purpose, it is a basic requirement to guarantee the access and permanence of all children in mainstream schools, providing them with the necessary resources and support for their full inclusion. It is evident that this requires an increase in public investment in education. This investment is directly proportional to the value we place as a society on the project of making our schools inclusive, the most ambitious and honorable challenge facing the education system since the universalization of compulsory education. The current pandemic situation presents the education system with a crossroads: either the projected investments for the coming years in the education system to guarantee equity and inclusion are accelerated, or there will be a significant regression in rights, which we are already witnessing. Different studies show how the lockdown has affected in a very disparate way, increasing pre-existing inequalities.

Inclusive education requires the presence in mainstream classrooms of students historically educated in special schools or units, but this is by no means sufficient. This is something that has become very clear in the Conversations: all sectors consulted have agreed on the need to improve what happens in mainstream schools so that all students can learn, participate, and pass. People need to feel loved and valued, and that happens when they are placed at the center of policies. 

The following measures are proposed for this purpose:

•  Accelerate the increase in Public Investment planned for the coming years, given the pandemic conditions, to align with the European average GDP percentage. It is necessary to lower student-teacher ratios and give teachers time to carry out their professional activities beyond just teaching classes.  
• Establish in the Education Law a Clause against rejection “in which the denial of admission to general education is prohibited and continuity of education is guaranteed”, as recommended byUnited Nations since 2013.
• Repeal Article 74 of the Organic Law of Education of May 3, 2006.
• Repeal Article 18.3 of the General Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and their Social Inclusion, of November 29, 2013.
• Eliminate exclusionary schooling modalities. This means that the Education Law must prevent any child from being referred to specific centers or classrooms in the future, thus beginning a process of adapting policies, cultures, and practices to make inclusive education effective within a period of no more than 10 years. Furthermore, those not enrolled in mainstream classrooms must be facilitated to return to them if they so wish.
• Take responsibility for all staff who attend to students during school hours in schools, preventing current practices where families themselves provide specific professionals to ensure inclusion, in a clearly discriminatory manner.
• Unwaveringly support the growth of public education, which currently accommodates the majority of disadvantaged people in our country. This support also implies the need to make schools truly public, understanding this not only in terms of ownership.

2. Elimination of school placement reports and modification of the procedures for developing psycho-educational reports.

As we have already pointed out, school placement reports involve discriminatory treatment for students with disabilities (something expressed very clearly in the2018 report on the Spanish Education System of the CRPD),as they are segregations that have a strong impact on the excluded person from the classroom and on the rest, who learn to normalize segregation. Students must learn to live together, regardless of each person’s characteristics. Although the modalities of schooling in special education units or centers have been legally regulated in the latest educational laws as an exceptional measure, reality tells us that this rule invites the continuation and strengthening of segregation:

“Schooling in special education units or centers shall only take place when the student’s needs cannot be met by a mainstream school. This situation shall be reviewed periodically, so that, whenever possible, students’ access to a greater degree of integration can be facilitated.” (Article 37.3 of the LOGSE)

The enrollment of students with special educational needs shall be governed by the principles of normalization and inclusion and shall ensure their non-discrimination and effective equality in access to and permanence in the education system, with flexibility measures for the different educational stages being introduced when deemed necessary. The enrollment of these students in special education units or centers, which may extend up to the age of twenty-one, shall only take place when their needs cannot be met within the framework of the diversity support measures of mainstream schools.” (Article 74.1 of the LOE, also present in the current LOMCE)

As made evident by the recentAlliance for inclusive education and against school segregation (7/2/2020)using data from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, 17% of students with disabilities have been in special education since the 1980s, although the percentage of the total student population in general education enrolled in special education centers has been growing since the previous economic crisis. In other words, it is not enough to state that it will be used in a minority way, as appears in the fourth additional provision of the current draft law, but rather the effective elimination of those possibilities that tend to be maintained and grow is necessary.

The tool used to support these schooling reports are the psycho-educational assessments carried out by School Guidance professionals. The procedures usually involve the use of standardized tests for clinical diagnosis, which are pedagogically useless and very harmful to students because they taint the entire environment. Families from the Conversations demand useful procedures to detect and remove barriers to learning, participation, and achievement, without succumbing to the blackmail of current assessments and reports to obtain the necessary resources. On the other hand, the Significant Curricular Adaptations to which some students are subjected in order to adapt the teaching-learning process result in an inability to graduate from compulsory education. System flexibility can eliminate the need to use SCAs, and the inclusive school is built on this basis: all students have the right to learn, participate, and pass in the same classrooms, respecting different paces, needs, and interests.

The positions of the Platform for an Extraordinary School, the stance of SOLCOM, the legally grounded one of the Front for Diversity and Inclusion, but fundamentally the clear positioning of the UN’s CRPD in this regard show that this is a section of cardinal importance. Rulings in favor of inclusive schooling, which make it clear that an administrative process cannot justify exclusion, are increasingly frequent. Among families, the possibility of developing a class action lawsuit against psycho-pedagogical reports and schooling opinions as discriminatory measures that only affect students with disabilities, which are putting professionals in a very difficult situation, is already being discussed:

“Sooner or later, we face a dilemma. What do I do, do I adapt to what is expected of me or do I enforce Human Rights?” (Raúl, School Counselor, Huelva)

Raul R. López – Human Rights Dilemma

It is necessary for the administration to show a very clear position in this regard, despite the current noise against international policies, the reports of UNESCO and UN experts, and international scientific evidence that have been saying for decades that school segregation must end. In our Conversations, some prominentresearchers pointed out that the noise comes from a senseless movement, and some voices were very brave and showed the way:

“We are a […] Special Education school. Our trajectory, I will try to define it as quickly and clearly as possible: It is a center that was created, well, from a perspective focused from the beginning on the inclusion of students, although paradoxically, looking back, we are part of a totally exclusionary schooling modality, when what we want is the inclusion of our students. Due to the current situation and the social uproar surrounding Special Education, we recognize that we are in a very difficult struggle that puts us in the position of how a special center can fight for its own disappearance, but we firmly believe in this idea, because the basis of our project is that we talk about people and their rights and that no system should limit or restrict them in any way.” (Marta, Management Team of a Special Education Center, Zaragoza)

Marta Cebrián – Director of Special Education Center

For this purpose, the following measures are proposed:

• Profound transformation of psychopedagogical assessments. A Working Group has emerged from the Conversations and is building an alternative proposal for constructing Psychopedagogical Assessments for inclusive education. The group starts from findings made in aprevious participatory meeting, and offers to share the proposals that arise from this work.
• Elimination of schooling reports, as they lead to exclusionary schooling modalities.
• Review of the meaning, function, and suitability of ACI (Specific Curricular Adaptations). It is the adaptation of the school system as a whole, of the center in particular, and of each class that must be transformed. It is the culture, policies, and practices that need to be reviewed to stop making dichotomous differentiations that exclude.
• Make compulsory education qualifications accessible to all students, with special emphasis on vulnerable groups. Prevent the use of ACI from limiting the possibility of obtaining the corresponding qualification in compulsory education.
• Decouple psychopedagogical assessment from resource provision. Children cannot be instrumentalized to obtain resources. Labeling to meet needs is a contradiction. The entire population has a percentage of students with disabilities, and this must be distributed across all schools, meaning every school must have the necessary resources.

3. Make the curriculum flexible and promote school autonomy to generate quality equitable and inclusive education, with the guarantee of human rights.

As we have been developing, there are red lines that must be very clear in the Education Law. These limits are set by respect for Human Rights, Children’s Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Committee’s Report on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding the Spanish Educational System and the aforementioned General Comment No. 4 offer insights into some of the fundamental barriers that currently prevent this development in our school system.

Once these red lines have been evidenced, it is undeniable that the education system needs to break with the rigidity that characterizes it today. The students who have participated in the Conversations have made it clear that many of the schools’ demands are sterile because they are far from their interests. That they need to be asked, and that, despite being in an institution prepared for them, they are not protagonists nor sufficiently valued. They ask to be understood by their teachers, and for them not to refer them to other professionals to be understood. This is one of the fundamental keys of inclusive schools: they are the responsibility of the entire community, and that responsibility is non-transferable.

Students want to be able to decide on teaching-learning processes, they question the meaning and value of standard evaluation systems, mostly through exams. This criticism is not trivial: schools need to question what they teach and how they teach it, but also what they evaluate and how they do it. These are conditions that must be flexible for schools to be inclusive, and to adapt to the needs of each child. And this is not a whim of this group of students: according to the reportGrowing up unequal. HBSC 2016 studyAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO) HBSC 2016 study, Spain ranks among the top 4 out of 42 participating education systems in terms of the pressure students feel from schoolwork. We also rank among the top in grade repetition rates (28.7% compared to the OECD’s 11.4% in PISA 2018) according to the OECD, and repetition is intensely associated with students from disadvantaged backgrounds due to their sociocultural origin, ethnicity, nationality, their parents’ low educational attainment, and disability.

This affects the quality of the education system as a whole, but particularly certain groups: how can such an exclusionary system, which prioritizes quantity over the quality of learning, adequately welcome and value a student who has historically been referred to a special education center or classroom?

Manuel: I used to make up excuses to Mom that I didn’t have homework, to avoid…

Juan: Me, me too, it happens to me a bit. A little bit quite a lot, […] because they see that the homework from each teacher, they think it’s only one subject per day, there are 5. […] You find yourself with a homework jam. (Manuel and Juan, Secondary and Primary students respectively)

🎥 Conversations about (inclusive) school: Students speak

“For me personally, averages and grades are quite stressful because all our effort and work in schools revolves around averages and passing.”. (Leo, secondary school student)

🎥 Leo – Grades

On the other hand, according to the OECD (2011), countries where educational centers have greater autonomy in teaching matters and how students are evaluated tend to achieve better performance. The OECD Indicators (2018) also inform us that educational centers in Spain have less autonomy in decision-making than the OECD average. While in the OECD 34% of decisions depend exclusively on the educational center, and 38% in the EU22, in Spain this percentage is only 10%. In other words, there is a very wide margin for improvement, which must be accompanied by an effort to make transparent the significant margin of opacity that still exists in schools, and which leaves so many families defenseless against the discrimination processes their children suffer.

Teachers must feel supported to exercise the discretion required by an inclusive school and encouraged to innovate with methodologies that allow for the flexibility and adaptation of teaching-learning processes to the diversity of students, something that does not go against the quality of teaching, but rather the opposite. On the other hand, this flexibility has its limits, established at the beginning of this section, which the administration must guarantee.

“Play is exploration, it is learning, it is emotion. So, please, for those in Secondary school, we must also let them play. It is extremely important that they play. Play is what will give us the bond with others, the relationship with others. And then, of course, movement, bodily movement, movement at all levels, because we are very accustomed to being in the classroom for 7 hours” (Mónica, Primary school teacher, Palma de Mallorca).

🎥 Conversations about (inclusive) school: professionals

Proposals regarding flexibility:

• Review the curriculum so that it focuses on the development of common competencies that allow for different levels of depth on fundamental topics, eliminating the current content overload. The same classroom must accommodate people with very diverse needs, and the structure of academic tasks must support relationships based on common and collaborative work. For this, it is essential that teachers, along with families and students, can reflect on the most suitable way to develop a curriculum for diversity, which should promote the satisfaction and well-being of students, and never the opposite.
• Promote pedagogy in the transformation of teaching-learning proposals and also in the diversification of evaluation proposals. This involves having students and teachers design and develop work projects that go beyond the logic organized by textbooks. A school that follows standard paces set by textbooks is incapable of adapting to diversity.

4. Develop educational institutions as learning communities

This involves directing the activity of schools towards the social and educational transformation of the community. To achieve this, it is necessary to involve all members of the educational community (teaching staff, families, and students), as well as educational administrations and other social and educational institutions beyond schools. To undertake this process, it is essential for schools to build shared leadership, which must stem from greater democratization of management teams and school councils (election of management teams, increased representation of families and students…), but it goes much further than representation in these bodies. It is an indispensable condition that all voices that constitute this educational community have a place and their knowledge merges to converge in proposals for improvement. It is about avoiding the prevalence of certain knowledge (academic, professional, and scientific knowledge) over others (the knowledge of experience provided by families and students), as the educational proposals that emerge from them, as well as the processes, must be guided by the right to inclusive education. That is, there is an intense and interdependent relationship between progress in school democratization and the defense of the right to inclusive education:

“There is an issue of the role [del equipo directivo] and the fact of having a clear direction: that in this school rights are guaranteed and that is not open for debate, even if what I am going to say sounds authoritarian: There is no debate about whether they can or cannot be here, it is a fact. Everyone can be here. This makes things clearer. […] From there, how do we create the conditions?” (Silvana, director of an inclusive school)

🎥 Conversations about the (inclusive) school: Management Teams

The same leadership that has been fundamental throughout the Conversations is also required for the inclusion and equity of the educational administration, particularly in the process of constructing the Education Law. Making schools more democratic implies curbing the discrimination that currently occurs. In other words, being uncompromising in the face of school inequality. For development, the administration must strengthen and give meaning to inspection, which should be linked to inclusion and equity.

Therefore, ways must be established to improve transparency in schools, so that no families feel abandoned by the institution in defending their child’s educational rights. Conflicts, which are a logical part of a pluralistic society and an institution that houses so much diversity, must be resolvable in schools in a democratic manner, which is based on greater participation of the entire community in decision-making. Conflicts in schools are being litigated due to the defenselessness of many families, and this must be returned to the school, because it is these conflicts that pave the way for the development of inclusive education.

“When I met Jorge (student), at the beginning of the school year, well, […] he came from a school where, well, inclusion really shone by its absence and […] he […] basically wanted freedom and autonomy and, in the end, well, that’s what all children ask for. Autonomy, feeling that, even though they are children, they can make decisions. […] In that sense, well, I think it’s an act of bravery by the teachers to reach those kinds of decisions for their students’ education. […] The bravery of teachers is what will determine the real change in the education system. The bravery of teachers, well, of everyone really. We all have to collaborate to change this system and move it towards something that truly helps everyone else.” (David, ESO teacher, Pontevedra)

🎥 CConversations about the (inclusive) school: professionals

Furthermore, schools must establish relationships with their surroundings that contribute to transforming them. For this reason, it is necessary to consider proposals within schools, among schools, and in society as a whole. The aim is to build learning communities, and in particular, communities that learn to learn, making optimal use of resources to ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable groups and equity (as proposed by the 2017 UNESCO Guide), but also to make culture accessible to all children through schools, generating meaningful and useful learning.

“I believe that schools have been somewhat on the sidelines of everything related to the cultural environment. And this cannot be, it cannot continue to be this way. There is much to learn in non-formal education. […] I was taking some notes earlier. The right to play, to have fun, learning by doing, the right to coexist, […] the flexibility of the curriculum, of the few mandatory objectives… All of this is already present in non-formal education, in one way or another. When students come to the museum to participate in workshops, they come to enjoy themselves, to have fun, and to learn, and they don’t come for me to demand things from them, to demonstrate everything they have learned and how they have learned it. For me, it is enough that the kids ask questions and are curious. When a student asks a question, that’s when they are motivated. They won’t ask you anything, nor will they question anything you’re saying, when they are ignoring what you are telling them. Therefore, I think we should learn to work from that perspective.” (Ana, Museum Educator and mother of a Primary School student, Málaga)

🎥 Conversations about (inclusive) school: professionals

Schools must open up to their surroundings, and neighborhoods and towns must be able to enter schools to learn from them, to become part of the raw material from which students learn, to know, build, and rebuild the culture of their social contexts. Schools as learning communities are proposed as spaces for meeting, intergenerational dialogue, construction, integrated knowledge, and social cohesion, which understand and support lifelong learning.

Some proposals aimed at achieving this purpose are:

• Progress in the democratization of school governance bodies. 
• Give a new meaning, linked to equity and inclusion, to educational inspection, which contributes to viewing conflicts as part of the learning that schools must accommodate, so that they are not taken to court, but rather learned to be resolved.
• Build bridges between community institutions to learn from and with them. Museums, NGOs, Associations and collectives, Adult Education Schools, Libraries, Community Social Services, Sports Entities, Parishes, Health Centers… The aim is to jointly build proposals for common work and thus develop an inclusive culture in the environment.

5. Schools as spaces for life and coexistence. Education beyond the classroom

Something that has become very clear during the Conversations is the importance of all those spaces in the school that are not intended for academic learning (or not so much), due to what is done or not done in them. Entrances and exits, recess, field trips, school canteens, etc., are places where students socialize, and it is necessary to break the tendency in them to maintain the social inequalities that exist beyond school.

Marcos: [Mi escuela] It’s good for me, but not so much for my sister, […] because she feels alone in the playground. She’s alone. Always.

Ignacio: And how could that be fixed, Marcos? What do you think?

Marcos: By talking to her classmates. […] That they get together with her.

Ignacio: And why do you think they don’t get together with her?

Marcos: Because he has autism. (Marcos, Primary student, Madrid)

🎥 Marcos’s school is good for him, but not for his sister

The school institution is called upon to break these inertias and turn these spaces into places of learning and democratic education. In schools, many children experience a painful loneliness that must be challenged,responding to the question posed by Antón, a secondary school student, to political representatives in the Education and Vocational Training Commission of the Congress: “What measures will you take so that no child feels alone at school?”

What I would like is to have classmates. Rather, I haven’t had classmates. I had teachers. I like that they trusted me and believed in me. Rather, when I left school already… I already left school, they didn’t trust me at all and… What they do is watch me all the time. (I would have liked) them to support me and teach me. They didn’t really teach me. They didn’t teach me because they didn’t do everything necessary for me (not) to be taught. And what I like most is freedom and moving around schools like everyone else. And being like everyone else too. I’m not different from others, I am different from others. (Mar, student who graduated from secondary school, Ferrol)

🎥 Mar and Lara

Schools must promote the liberation of students from the dynamics of a society that is still too exclusionary. The solution lies not in ironclad control, but in the development of environments where habitual forms of interaction can be challenged, and this means giving an emerging pedagogical priority to those spaces that have historically been outside the fundamental action of teachers. There are already proposals emerging from the community that we must advance, for example, to create inclusive playgrounds. These involve the collaboration of the entire school community. As students have told us in the Conversations, the fundamental aspect in schools is the structure of social relationships, above the structure of academic tasks. Let’s focus there.

For this task, we propose: 

• Guarantee access for all students, regardless of their personal characteristics, to cafeteria services, from which many children are still excluded, as well as to extraordinary and extracurricular activities offered by the school, which must be accessible and inclusive.
• Recap and share experiences of developing inclusive and dynamic playgrounds, which allow for transcending inequalities.
• Develop forms of organization for the entire community for mutual care and the building of bonds in the school space, with the aim that no child ever feels alone, and to combat inequality also in the construction of games and groups. 

6. Contribute to creating spaces for collaborative work and dialogic exchange between families, students, and teachers to foster educational processes that occur at home and at school.

It is necessary to create alliances between families, students, and schools to build a new inclusive culture in educational centers and beyond. The knowledge of mothers and fathers is essential to meet the specific needs of each child, but they are also an inexhaustible source of energy to drive the project of inclusive schools, and of knowledge to build them. Families live with diversity daily, and can advise teachers with their knowledge and experiences. Many families have learned over the years to be inclusive, and have managed to create welcoming environments in their homes where each person is valued for who they are, not for their ability.

Of course, the reverse also happens: there are schools and professionals who have a lot of accumulated learning in this regard, and who can and should help families in their educational task. However, this practice is more common. It is essential that schools now dedicate time to listening to students and families as a tool for progress.

“In this way, many students were left behind in a very natural way, and it even seemed kind to recommend that someone look for other places with more resources and so on. Breaking that dynamic that has to do with beliefs, as you have mentioned, responding to the dilemma by stepping out of self-absorption, has been the most important path, the most important challenge for me. Starting to look at ourselves from a different perspective.” (Cristóbal, School Principal in Madrid) 

🎥 Cristóbal Calero – Educational Center Principal

This is what we mean when we refer to the creation of communities of practice and/or learning: developing the organization’s capacity to learn to be more inclusive. But beyond the specific work within schools, it is essential to develop an inclusive culture in the broader social debate. To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4, it is imperative to engage in public debate, to make society think and act on educational inequality and the need to rebuild our systems based on equity and inclusion. To this end, proposals such as the Conversations developed, on which this report is based, can be very useful.

“This exercise in collective intelligence […] seems really important and necessary in the society we are living in, and especially in the wake of this pandemic.” (Maribel García López, Deputy Spokesperson on the Education and Vocational Training Committee of the Congress of Deputies for the Socialist Parliamentary Group)

🎥 Conversations about (inclusive) school: Politics

It is not something solely aimed at drafting the law, but at building the inclusive society and culture that require time, collective efforts, and determined work. On the one hand, dialogue between schools, families, and students is required. Collective reconstruction is required. And also the dissemination of findings and proposals to educate ourselves in Human Rights, all together.

For this collaborative work and dialogic exchange, the following proposals are presented:

• Creation of platforms for social dialogue on education among the different sectors of the school community. Placing inclusive education on the social and cultural agenda.
• Develop youth parliaments, where they articulate their own proposals for the education system.
• Create radio and television spaces on public channels to develop dialogues, share experiences, hold debates… In short, to highlight the need to advance in the recognition of educational rights.
• Make the State School Councils and those of the different Autonomous Communities more visible and give them a more public and participatory character. Make them more interactive with schools.
• Together with the Ministry of Culture and Sport, and equivalent departments, prioritize a line of public investment in Social and educational Inclusion projects, as well as a historical review of social inequalities through art.
• Creation of informative campaigns in which society is involved in the need to take the step towards the conquest of social rights and the improvement of the quality and equity of the education system. 

7. Bringing initial and ongoing teacher training closer to the reality of educational centers, in order to ensure the development of more inclusive practices.

Inclusive education should be much more present transversally and explicitly in the study plans of the different Degrees offered in the Faculties of Education. This requires a profound review of these initial teacher training study plans that allows for the construction of a new conception of differences and a review of the approach to addressing them, more intersectional and capable of separating from the medical model that has historically accompanied special education. Likewise, it is important to develop teaching methods that contribute to making our schools more inclusive and that give students the opportunity to have educational and learning experiences adapted to their needs and interests. This requires urgent collaborative work so that new teachers do not continue to reproduce the errors of the study plans, which become obstacles to inclusion.

“To start focusing on issues that are present and uncomfortable for schools, for the administration, for the systems, and to abandon the overly psychobiological perspectives on what happens in schools. That’s why I believe we should face the challenge, uncomfortable for some, of starting to talk more seriously and making more noise about the exclusionary pressures within the grammar of schooling.” (Ignacio Haya, Researcher at the University of Cantabria)

🎥 Nacho Haya – Exclusionary Pressures

Furthermore, teachers in schools need ongoing training that allows them to address the problems and needs that arise in the classroom, and to conceive of diversity as an opportunity for learning and enrichment. They need adequate working conditions, with an increase in public investment that emphasizes reducing class sizes to provide appropriate responses. But at the same time, consolidated projects are required to drive the necessary transformations that must be developed in schools to modify cultures, policies, and practices. The transformation of their practices cannot feel like a “leap into the abyss” for schools. Therefore, and given the scale of the project we are facing, they need to feel supported and accompanied. 

These trainings must be, as has been well expressed in the Conversations, of deep intensity, meaning, and duration.

“Presence is what the child really grasps […]. Of course, all of this implies accepting, for example, that children have different listening times, […] different ways of learning, different interests. From this, we get that each child is a world. So, […] our role is like telling the other person that I care about who they really are, who that person is. […] The children said it very clearly the other day […]: If there is no trust, there is no relationship, there is no bond, […] everything is meaningless. Therefore, the classroom is meaningless. […] Our work, for me, has two very important points: the personal, which is personal work, that […] we must be agents of change. People who are truly agents of change are because they have worked on themselves deeply; these are not 20-hour courses at a teacher center; we are talking about much longer training, we are talking about personal knowledge and knowing how to be with others, because I have been able to work on what my presence is in relation to others. The second aspect is the community.” (Mónica, Primary school teacher, Palma de Mallorca)

🎥 Conversations about (inclusive) school: professionals

To this end, it is important to involve researchers from our Universities in promoting Participatory Action Research projects and collaborative research committed to community participation, in which they accompany, advise, support, and learn from the teachers in the schools in the task of building inclusive schools. It is the teachers in the schools, along with their communities, who must take the lead in the research to evolve their institutions, but this support from the Universities can provide methodological elements and valuable teaching materials that help communities organize themselves, and that provide scientific support for the reflection, design, intervention, and evaluation processes that take place in the schools. Furthermore, they can offer their support to document the experiences and publish them in “green line” repositories: real experiences on which to walk together. These projects must involve teamwork from all teaching staff.

“A strategy that we use when we do […] training is to request that specialists attend the training sessions accompanied by the teachers from the mainstream classroom. That is, as a requirement, because otherwise it seems like it doesn’t concern them. It is a very simple strategy to implement inclusion support teams that can truly implement more inclusive practices in their schools, analyze them, rethink them, reformulate them, and research them.” (Odet Moliner, researcher at Universitat Jaume I, Valencia)

🎥 Odet Moliner – Collaboration between mainstream and specialist teachers

Furthermore, these participatory research projects are the best setting for the initial training of future teachers in inclusive practices, and also for systematizing Practicum proposals for the Faculties of Educational Sciences at Universities. These university student internships can be structured as service-learning, where, in addition to learning to build inclusive schools, future teachers contribute to the schools.

Therefore, the following proposals emerge for teacher training:

• Jointly with the Ministry of Universities, organize conversations between school teachers and the teaching community of Educational Sciences throughout the State to redesign the Degrees in Early Childhood Education, Primary Education, Pedagogy, Social Education, and the Master’s Degree for Secondary and Vocational Training Teachers. Inclusive Education cannot be a tangential aspect in the initial training of education professionals, nor an optional track, but fundamental training that must transform each of the subjects in the degree programs.
• From the Ministry of Science and Innovation, create a specific call for Research Projects to stimulate participatory projects in schools to advance inclusive practices. Promote a Teacher Training Plan for Inclusive Education, involving the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, the Ministry of Universities, and the Ministry of Science and Innovation, along with the equivalent departments in the different Autonomous Communities. This plan should foster intense collaboration between Teacher Training Centers, Faculties of Education at different Universities, and Researchers for the development of Participatory Action Research Projects, serving as a source of initial and ongoing learning, promoting a collaborative culture, and transforming school practices.
• Free up teaching time for educators to dedicate to training, coordination, and collective reflection. Training hours are as important as teaching hours, so they must be valued as part of the work schedule.
• Facilitate open, flexible, and inclusive virtual communication platforms that allow for more direct and horizontal communication among the different members of the educational community, different schools, and teacher training centers.
• Build a repository to share experiences, documenting the successful initiatives or best practices in schools’ progress towards inclusive education.
• Develop guides for school communities (teachers, students, families, organizations, etc.) to help them organize and initiate collaborative projects for creating inclusive schools. 

8. Dignify the teaching profession and provide these professionals with the necessary support and resources to make their workplaces more inclusive.

The insufficient perception of social prestige of the teaching profession, job instability, and excessive bureaucracy are some of the handicaps that hinder the development of more inclusive practices in schools. These scenarios prevent long-term projects from being developed and reduce the prominence of professionals with temporary contracts, as continuous job transfers prevent them from feeling like participants and becoming sufficiently involved in the transformation processes that take place in schools and that necessarily develop over the long term.

These difficulties also cause significant wear and tear for the most involved and experienced professionals, who get stuck in information and training processes every time a new teacher joins, and have difficulty seeing their change projects mature.

“To achieve the participation of the educational community […] we started a long and very complex journey […] that we have undertaken in our school […]. First, to be clear about where we want to go: […] to achieve an inclusive school where all children learn and where families value the importance of the school.” (Rosa, director of C.P. of Early Childhood and Primary Education, Zaragoza)

🎥 Conversations about the (inclusive) school: Management Teams

It is essential to convey this appreciation for education to all of society, and teachers cannot feel alone in this important project. Educational administrations must formalize their commitment to this social appreciation, and the fundamental way to do so is through public investment in education. For example, the administration’s commitment to early childhood education is a commitment to educational equity.

To this end, some proposals are:

• Commit to a gradual reduction of teacher/student ratios over the coming years.
• Advance in the universalization of Early Childhood Education, as one of the most valuable tools for compensating for social and educational inequalities.
• Make an effort to stabilize staffing, especially when they are committed to participatory action research projects with the school community for inclusive education.
• Reduce the bureaucratization of teaching work. This is not at odds with the transparency of what is produced in schools, but rather commits to the essence of educational work, trying to eliminate all that is accessory that is hindering educational work.
• Develop campaigns to increase the collective appreciation of education as a social and democratic good.

As a closing remark

In these pages, we have outlined some outcomes from a series of Conversations about the (inclusive) school, developed during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in May and June 2020. These conversations aimed for collective reflection, but also to offer support to those of us confined to our homes. The sessions became excellent spaces to connect and to hear what each person and group has to say to others. The exercise of listening was the main contribution of this methodological approach: social projects, like making schools inclusive, require us to pause and listen carefully to what others can offer.

Those meetings began with a heartfelt cry from many mothers and some fathers. The families’ conversation was followed by the expression of the pain that unfortunately continues to occur in schools, and which primarily affects students. Some of the testimonies from children and young people were devastating. Then teachers and other professionals spoke, who also suffer daily from the crushing homogenization that still prevails in schools. But all those encounters, filled with pain, were also full of hope. That is why they were so brilliant. Reality is never finished, and that is what always guided each dialogue. Each of the groups focused on what can be done. And there is much to do, but it is within reach if we understand that it is a project that can no longer be delayed, because it concerns the right to education. To advance the most commendable project in our history: human rights.

The debate we are addressing regarding the education bill must make this moral and legal imperative central. It cannot be postponed any longer. Looking the other way is no longer an option. Society, and particularly children, need to learn to live together, and school is a privileged place for this to happen. Only in this way can we learn to value ourselves beyond what we are capable of doing, our origin, our possessions, our nationality… because all human beings have the same worth. The COVID-19 pandemic leaves us with the lesson of our interdependence. We need each other. And only a society that has learned to live with differences and value them will be able to take responsibility for a society that cares for the well-being of all its members. Inclusive education is the seed of inclusive societies. 

Back cover

The parliamentary debate on the Education Bill project has found itself, unintentionally, in the midst of a historic moment. The COVID-19 pandemic, the months of lockdown, and the subsequent return to classrooms are inviting us to re-evaluate school in ways we had never taken so seriously before, even though pedagogical research has been evidencing them for decades. With the lockdown, the physical school disappeared, and with it, its social and educational value became powerfully apparent: we need schools because they generate new possible universes, new freedoms, and challenge the inequalities that permeate our societies. The educational impact of the pandemic has been uneven, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable populations, who were already suffering from painful rates of school failure and early school leaving.

During these months, we have repeatedly heard what children and young people have missed most about schools: the people who inhabit them and the bonds built within them. Alongside this evidence, the arts and physical exercise have occupied a prominent place in our daily lives, and various forms of solidarity have emerged. These issues, insufficiently valued by schools, as well as the evidence provided by international research on the need to pay more attention to student well-being, invite us to redirect our focus to the essential: we need schools that satisfy our human nature in its curiosity and need to learn, while also promoting equity, with special attention to disadvantaged populations. The pandemic has highlighted our interdependence. We need each other, and schools are one of the most precious social resources for meaningfully building our relationships, and doing so through a decisive push for inclusive education.

This text offers some proposals to pave the way for that commitment, which emerges from a series of conversations between students, families, teachers, researchers, management teams, and political representatives held during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The value of these conversations lay in listening. At a time of public debate about the new Organic Law of Education, listening to the voices of different members of the school community is a necessary exercise for building an education system that aims to meet the needs of all people without exception. The moment we are going through is critical, but it also allows us to see more clearly what is essential: we need each other. And only a society that has learned to live with differences and value them can take responsibility for a society that cares for the well-being of all its members. Inclusive education is the seed of inclusive societies.