Archivo

Building collectively to promote the inclusive school

• Organized by: ‘Quererla es Crearla’ and the Department of Theory and History of Education and M.I.D.E. of the University of Malaga.
• Date: October 22, 2022, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
• Location: Ateneo La Maliciosa. Calle Peñuelas 12, Madrid.
• Information and registration: www.creemoseducacioninclusiva.com/workshopcrearla

Summary

The WorkshopCrearla is a meeting between families, students, and professionals where we will share a diagnosis of the school reality in relation to inclusion, collectively built over the last 4 years. From this starting point, the aim is to generate an egalitarian dialogue to create strategic lines for continuing to work in a participatory, organized, and systematic way over the next year. It is not a conventional conference or course. It is a meeting in which each participant commits to the transformation of the education system.

Where we come from, where we are going

The WorkshopOrienta 

In February 2018, we celebrated the main precedent of this meeting at the University of Malaga. The WorkshopOrienta was a working meeting held that aimed to establish egalitarian communication between school professionals and families with enrolled children, with the idea of evaluating the experience of guidance in schools in the Spanish state, which must be inclusive. To this end, an intensive day of assemblies, presentations, and workshops was convened for people involved in inclusive education, which would conclude with strategic lines for continuing to work towards the necessary transformation of schools. That work was the seed for many actions developed over the following years by different people and groups. 

The Workshop was not a course or a conference. It was not conceived as an event where some attend as listeners and others present. It was a collaborative working meeting, where we engaged in intense dialogue to analyze the reality of schooling and guidance in particular, and to generate strategic lines for continued progress. It was an in-person meeting, but there was also a fundamental role played by those who could not participate physically. The meeting would be divided into plenary sessions (assemblies) and group workshops where the lines generated in the assemblies would be developed. The plenary sessions were broadcast live via streaming, and the meeting even became a trending topic on Twitter thanks to all the participation from home.

But there was something more. In the weeks leading up to the meeting, following an open call, videos of about 3 minutes were generated and published in which participants outlined their schooling experiences, sharing a pain and a joy associated with them, and describing the role played by Guidance. We wanted the pain and joy, which have names and surnames, to have a space in the meeting, because we need to know what students, families, and professionals experience in schools.

In this way, non-attendees generated the context for the in-person meeting itself, and participated through Twitter in the working sessions. The sessions were extraordinary, and from then on, many of the attendees got to work. You can consult that meeting by clickingHERE.

We were becoming aware as a group with each story and each experience that was shared. At the same time, the idea was taking shape that our biological condition is not the problem, but rather the “excuse” to maintain a system that thrives on segregation. Estela Martín, mother and activist, Andalusia. 

Conversations about the (inclusive) school 

Two years after the “WorkshopOrienta, between May and June 2020 while we were suffering the strict lockdown due to the COVID19 pandemic, a series of “Conversations about the (inclusive) school” that were shared on social media. These conversations aimed to be a space to think publicly about the reality we experience in our schools and to project the school we desire.

What I would like is to have classmates. Rather, I haven’t had classmates. I had teachers. I like that they trusted and believed in me. 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.Mar,graduate student from ESO, Ferrol.

The sessions were recorded and disseminated through social networks, while also being used for pedagogical research purposes. More than 200 people of different nationalities registered for the conversations, which is why the meetings were operationally divided by groups, in which initially onlyfamilies, after students, professionals, management teams, researchers and political leadersat the Congress of Deputies. Although meetings were held by collectives, the idea was that all registered participants would witness the rest of the debates, and the rest of the public was invited to follow and comment on them on social media. The listening exercise was fundamental to the entire process. at the Congress of Deputies. Although meetings were held by collectives, the idea was that all registered participants would witness the rest of the debates, and the rest of the public was invited to follow and comment on them on social media. The listening exercise was fundamental to the entire process. 

As a result of all this, the recorded sessions from those days remain for reflection and analysis, and are already being used for teacher training processes, with tens of thousands of views. On the other hand, from these meetings a document is born for legislative debate, both at the national and regional levels. The text, available for free download, is titled “Analysis and Proposals for a New Education Law. Citizen Conversations about Inclusive Education” (Octaedro, 2020). All information about the conversations can be found by clicking HERE. 

Start focusing on issues that are present and uncomfortable for the school, for the administration, for the systems, and 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).Ignacio Haya,researcher, University of Cantabria.

Working to build the dream

Both the 2018 Workshop and the Conversations about the (inclusive) school have constituted participatory diagnoses to understand the reality. They are narratives built through dialogue among a large group of people for the transformation of collective ideals. From them, a series of works were derived that responded to what was discovered in those two major moments of collective creation.

These are proposals that aim to channel new ways of confronting the explored reality. In other words, to create new paths through different forms of participation, which lead to an expansion of the participants’ experience, and to the production of useful guides and materials for building inclusion. Among all of them, the following works stand out:

The first is a Participatory Action Research developed at the CEIP “La Parra” in Almáchar (Málaga), an experience that is serving to train other centers and from which a guide emerges to promote coexistence in school. More information can be found at https://bit.ly/3Ng6p6R. 

The second is a Working Group on Inclusive Psychopedagogical Assessment, with more than 2 years of recorded periodic meetings, made up of about 50 guidance counselors from all over the country who are building a new alternative psychopedagogical evaluation proposal, as a key piece in the construction of the inclusive school. More information at https://bit.ly/3ImS5Yv.

The third is a Students for Inclusion Working Group. For more than 1 year, periodic meetings have been recorded with students from all over the state. Together they have built a guide to get students themselves to promote inclusion in their institutes. The work of this group can be consulted at https://bit.ly/3PcliHQ.

The fourth Activist Families Working Group for Inclusive Education, has built the awareness campaign for inclusive education “Quererla es crearla”. The campaign consists of several videos, among which the one that gives it its name (available at https:// youtu.be/ze1K3X5-NTY) and a website stand out (https://creemoseducacioninclusiva.com), which brings together all the previous work, as well as a selection of legal texts to defend inclusive education and scientific texts that underpin it. On the other hand, this collective has developed the guide “How to Dissent”. 

Finally, all this work culminates in the Documentary “Inclusive Education. Quererla es crearla”, directed by filmmaker Cecilia Barriga, which will premiere on October 21, 2022 (one day before the WorkshopCrearla), at the Reina Sofía National Museum of Art. 

We have gradually involved all the students and their classmates in coming together. And everyone being together. But we started a bit late. If we had started earlier, we would have already changed a lot of things. But that, little by little, is being achieved.Amanda, a Secondary student at CEIP La Parra, Almáchar.

A few insights into the research in which it is framed

Emerging narratives about inclusive schools from the social model of disability. Resistance, resilience, and social change

This research project starts from three premises, closely related to the Workshop presented on these pages:

• 1) The activism of persons with disabilities and their environment promotes educational inclusion and social change.
• 2) The knowledge derived from the Social Model of Disability allows us to question and improve schools. 
• 3) Networks of mutual support and resistance foster resilience processes. 

Based on these ideas, the research has aimed to recover stories of activism from families, students, and professionals who are resolutely fighting to make school a place where all children find recognition through presence, learning, participation, and success in the preschool and compulsory stages. It documents and analyzes the experiences of those who are striving to ensure that Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Spain (UN, 2006), is fulfilled. However, the research goes far beyond these descriptive and legal terms. 

The study documents the new narratives about disability and inclusive education that originate in this collective in order to recognize their value and disseminate them; it has delved into the educational conceptions, experiences, and professional practices involved in school inclusion processes; it helps to understand the collaboration mechanisms used by these groups; and finally, it has created resources that make visible and feed new conceptions of functional diversity and that articulate proposals to promote inclusive education. This is fundamentally what is intended with the WorkshopCrearla, based on all the work developed to date. 

To achieve these objectives, the research team has ethnographically embedded itself in the coordinates of people who are constructing narratives far beyond the conventional boundaries of what we have understood as school, and who are trying to force the transformation of the institution through new cultural elaborations and vital and social cartographies. The biographical-narrative methodology has been used, understanding that it perfectly suits the study’s aims. Within this methodology, different methodological formulas have been employed: the development of abundant micro-life stories or autobiographical accounts, the construction of 6 in-depth life stories of families, students, and professionals committed to inclusion, and a documentary analysis of current legislation on equity and inclusion in schools. Furthermore, everything has been constructed within a large participatory action research process, in which it is understood that it is ordinary people, not an external research team, who truly investigate their reality to transform it. 

The work has produced different reports that are being published in two formats: text and audiovisual. Finally, the audiovisual report, which will premiere on October 21, 2022, as we mentioned, at the Reina Sofía National Museum of Art, will be the subject of separate analyses developed through two discussion groups, one of them with a group of activists in defense of functional diversity. 

The research aims for understanding, but also for the expression of people and groups who are often not legitimized in their constructions. Therefore, the research is in itself transformative and a tool for social change. Furthermore, the findings are intended to serve as guidance for future proposals more oriented towards action. These narratives and the analyses derived from them will be useful as initial guidance for future participatory research and citizen action proposals that groups will organize to make the struggles for this social change more effective. 

The proposed methodology allowed us to build the proposals “from the bottom up”. That is, through participation and collaboration. Javier Herrera, father and activist. Purpose of the Workshop 

Purpose of the Workshop 

The meeting

Generate a meeting between families, students, and professionals that starts from the diagnosis of the school reality in relation to inclusion, collectively built over the last 4 years. From there, the aim is to generate an egalitarian dialogue in which to create strategic lines for continuing to work in a participatory, organized, and systematic way over the next year. It is not a conventional conference or course. It is a meeting in which each participant commits to the transformation of the education system. 

Workshop Objectives

This purpose of the meeting is broken down into the following objectives: 

1. Promote the construction of networks for collaboration and activism for inclusion. 
2. Disseminate a participatory evaluation of the state of school inclusion, based on experience. 
3. To provide a space for expressing desires, concerns, doubts, and proposals. 
4. To re-establish the necessary trust between professionals, students, and families, through people committed to the democratization of schools. 
5. To design strategic lines to promote the real and effective development of the inclusive school. 
6. Organize a large Participatory Action Research to promote inclusion in the state school system. 

Methodological bases

The WorkshopCrearla will be part of the research, as were the previous participatory meetings held within this project. It draws from Booth’s (1998) perspective when he proposes the “excluded voice thesis”: this research methodology allows us to reach the perspectives and experiences of oppressed groups who could not make their voices heard with other methodological proposals. So much so that this author emphasizes the value of these narrative proposals being able to give voice even to those who lack words. That is, the research seeks to question and even break the power relations that dominate research practices. 

This problem is meticulously analyzed by Spivak (2006), when reflecting on the difficulty that the subaltern subject has in expressing themselves and being heard. This difficulty lies in the absence of spaces that accommodate these voices that have historically been silenced. All of this converges in a common idea: the subaltern cannot speak because they lack those spaces to be heard and are misinterpreted from a hegemonic position by ‘intellectuals’, altering their meaning. 

The Workshop seeks to confront this reality, understanding that only from the voices of people identified by disability and their allies can new narratives emerge that overcome hegemonic interpretations of disability and schooling, as well as articulate new resistant actions that lead educational change. Therefore, it is about researching with, and not so much researching about, as Moriña (2017) indicates. Research, then, is understood from an inclusive perspective (Parrilla, 2009; Rojas, 2008). 

Institutions, and very specifically schools, steal the language and discoursefrom students and their families, leaving them disarmed in the face of practices that lead people to exclusionary paths, objectification, and social and educational death. They come to be defined by schools, and the language (as discourse and practice) of schools forces them to abandon their demands. They are gradually disarmed and demobilized, largely through the power of normality; their differences are transformed into identities defined by power.

In that process, students are forced to conform to an exclusionary dichotomous scheme: to camouflage themselves within the norm, denying differences, or to become the opposite, the abnormal. And the abnormal ceases to be recognized and heard. However, they always had a voice. We therefore need to rescue it to be able to form new possible realities. This is the emancipatory approach (Barton, 2005) attributed to narrative methodologies, which facilitate social and personal transformations by investigating “discomfort” (Wolgemuth & Donohue, 2006).

All of this, combined with the capacity of participatory research to state unpleasant truths (Kemmis, 2006), will allow us to generate common projects based on people’s words. The participation of those involved will seek channels for the collective construction of knowledge, as well as the production of strategic lines of action in collaboration with other actors. In this sense,the WorkshopCrearla aims to be the start of a major Participatory Action Research project for an inclusive school in the different places of origin of the participants. 

Thank you for letting me see that I’m not crazy for believing it’s possible. Maite Gavilán, mother and activist.

Those who have no voice in school shouted at this event. Those who cannot move, danced joyfully. Cristóbal Gómez, teacher. 

Work dynamic

How is the meeting structured

The Workshop is an intensive working day. The day will be distributed as follows: 

• 10:00-10:30 AM. Presentationof the workshop, ideas for organization and work proposal.
• 10:30-12:00 h. Plenary Assembly. Sharing work developed by the community for the transformation of the system. 
• 12:00-12:30 PM. Break.
• 12:30-14:00 h.Workshops.Participants will be distributed among the different thematic proposals, located in various spaces of the Ateneo. Work in small groups. 
• 2:00 PM – 4:00 PMLunch 
• 4:00-4:30 p.m. Sharing of workshop work in plenary session. 4:30-6:00 p.m. Continuation of the workshops. 
• 6:00-6:30 PMPlenary Assembly.Sharing of workshop work and construction of proposals. 
• 6:30 PM – 7:00 PMBreak. 
• 7:00 PM – 8:00 PMPlenary Assembly.Action planning. 

They are present but cannot be

Virtualize the event as well

There are people who, despite their interest in participating in this meeting, will not be able to be in Madrid in person. For them, we may ask for some tasks beforehand to incorporate their perspectives. On the other hand, the plenary sessions will be streamed so that interested people, both within and outside our borders, can follow them. The hashtag #WorkshopCrearla will be used on Twitter so that people who follow the debates and the assembly work can participate live. 

Dissent cannot succeed if those in power do not open themselves to listening to those who disagree, in order to build a better school together. A school that does not accept injustice and that defends the rights of all.GuideHow to dissent. Radikales Desadaptadas Collective. 

Inclusive education is not something technical, but a committed form of activism with a humanizing project for the school, in which guidance work becomes research at the service of the democratization of the center, making visible the violence that is normalized in schools, and recognizing the value and legitimacy of the knowledge of the entire community.GuideA psycho-pedagogical assessment for inclusion, Alterevaluación Collective. 

Assuming inclusive education as a human right with all its implications means recognizing the intrinsic value of the person in the school context, which re-situates them in the world. In a world with history, in which we have not occupied equivalent positions. Only by questioning the boundaries that delimit us, and that divide struggles and dreams, can we build a radical inclusive pedagogy, which is also based on our leading role in history.Calderón and Echeita, (Forthcoming), University of Malaga and Autonomous University of Madrid.

Meeting place, registration, and contact

Meeting place: Ateneo La Maliciosa. Calle Peñuelas, 12, Madrid.

Registrations: www.creemoseducacioninclusiva.com/workshopcrearla.com. 

Contact: info@creemoseducacioninclusiva.com.

Bibliographical references

Cited in this dossier

• Barton, L. (2005). Emancipatory research and disabled people: some observations and questions.Educational Review, 57, 317-327. 10.1080/00131910500149325.
• Kemmis, S. (2006). Participatory Action Research and the public sphere.Educational Action Research, 14 (4), 459-476. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790600975593. 
• Moriña, A. (2017). Investigating with Life Stories. Narcea, Madrid. 
• UN (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New York, NY: UN. https://bit.ly/2X6oZGC. 
• Parrilla, Á. (2009). What if research on inclusion were not inclusive? Reflections from a biographical-narrative research.Journal of Education, 349, 101-117. https://bit.ly/3Irzlad.
• Rojas, S. (2008). The “voice” of people with intellectual disabilities in educational research: rethinking research practices.Journal of Education, 345, 377-398. https://bit.ly/3NRxQTO. 
• Spivak, G.C. (2006). Can Subaltern Speak? In C. Nelson & I. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (271-316). London: Macmillan. 
• Wolgemuth, J. & Donoghue, R. (2006). Toward an inquiry of discomfort: Guiding transformation in “emancipatory” narrative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(5), 1012-1021. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800406288629.

Some project publications

• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. & RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. (In press). Weaving struggles for the right to education: collective and personal narratives for inclusion from the social model of disability.Pedagogía Social. Revista Interuniversitaria. 
• CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I. (2018). Deprived of human rights. Disability & Society, 33(10), 1666-1671. 
• CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I. (2019). Differences and Inequality in Schools: The Languages of Oppressed People as Hope. Ars Vivendi Journal, 11, 2-11. 
• CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I. & ECHEITA, G. (Forthcoming). Inclusive education as a human right. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. 
• ALONSO BRIALES, M. & VILA MERINO, E. (2019). Thinking collectively about a better school. Continuing education and inclusive education. Secondary School Classroom, 33, 18-22. 
• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. (Coord.)(2019). Monthly Topic: Challenges of inclusive education in secondary education. Secondary School Classroom, 33, 12-25. 
• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. & RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. (2021). Rhetorics, possibilities, and torn childhoods. On inclusive education in the LOMLOE. Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 526, 74-80. 
• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. & RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. (Coords.)(2020). Analysis and proposals for a new Education Law. Citizen conversations about inclusive education. Octaedro, Barcelona. 
• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. and VERDE FRANCISCO, P. (2018). Recognizing diversity. Short texts and images to transform perspectives. Octaedro, Barcelona. 
• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I.; MORENO PARRA, J. & MOJTAR MENDIETA, L. (In press). School inequality and discrimination based on ability during confinement. Family experiences in participatory research processes.Revista Complutense de Educación. 
• CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I.; RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. & ALONSO BRIALES, M. (2020). Researching to build inclusive education. In Vila, E. and Grana, I. (Coords.), Educational research and social change (pp. 189-209). Octaedro, Barcelona.
• CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I., CRUZ MOYA, O. AND RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. (2019). Approach to school failure of disadvantaged students from critical discourse analysis. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 27(49). 
• CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I.; AINSCOW, M.; BERSANELLI, S. & MOLINA, P. (2020). Educational inclusion and equity in Latin America: an analysis of the challenges. Prospects: Comparative Journal of Curriculum, Learning, and Assessment, 49(3), 169-186.
• CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I.; MORENO-PARRA, J. & VILA-MERINO, E. (Forthcoming). Education, power, and segregation. The psychoeducational report as an obstacle to inclusive education.International Journal of Inclusive Education.
• COLLECTIVE ‘STUDENTS FOR INCLUSION’, CALDERÓN, I.; MOJTAR, L. & CABELLO, F. (2021).How to make your school inclusive.Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Madrid. 
• HERRERA FERNÁNDEZ, M.M., MATÉS LLAMAS, C., FARZANEH PEÑA, D. & BARRADO FERNÁNDEZ, S. (2021). Walking towards inclusion through participatory action research in an educational community.Latin American Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(2), 135-153. 
• MARTÍNEZ MARTÍN, M.; CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. and VILLAMOR MANERO, P. (2019). The role of practice in the training of education professionals. In Vera Vila, J. (Coord.), Training to transform. Social change and educational professions (pp. 133-156). GEU Editorial, Granada. 
• MOJTAR MENDIETA, L.; CABELLO FERNÁNDEZ, F. and CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. (2021, December 2). Student Voice: An Essential Tool for Building Inclusive Schools.The Conversation.
• MOJTAR-MENDIETA, L. & CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, I. (2022). Silenced voices leading school changes.Enabling Education Review, 10, 28-29.
• MORENO PARRA, J.J. (2021) Inclusive Education: From the State to the Public. Devenir. 40, 67-90. 
• MORENO PARRA, J.J., MOJTAR MENDIETA, L., GONZÁLEZ MILEA, A. (2020). Inclusive education in the time of COVID-19.Secondary School Classroom, 38, 18-22. 
• RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. AND CABELLO FERNÁNDEZ-DELGADO, F. (2019). Audiovisual narratives about resilience and education from an educational-communication approach. Innovación Educativa, 19 (80), 77-92. 
• RASCÓN GÓMEZ, M.T. and CALDERÓN ALMENDROS, I. (2019). Challenges of inclusive education in secondary education.Secondary Classroom, 33, 12-17. 
• SOLDEVILA-PÉREZ, J.; CALDERÓN-ALMENDROS, & I. ECHEITA, G. (Forthcoming). My (school) life is expendable: radicalizing the discourse against the miseries of the school system. In J. Collet, M. Naranjo & J. Soldevila (Ed),Global struggles for inclusive education: lessons from Spain. Springer, Switzerland.
• UNESCO-OIE (2022). Reaching all students: A UNESCO-IIEP toolbox to support inclusion and equity in education. UNESCO International Bureau of Education, Geneva. 
• VEGA, C. & DE OÑA, J.M. (2019). Resources and ideas for developing inclusive education.Secondary School Classroom, 33, 23-25.
• VILA MERINO, E. & HIJANO, M. (2022). Transfer of knowledge and educational research. Octaedro, Barcelona.