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Rascón-Gómez, María Teresa; Cabello-Fernández-Delgado, Florencio; Calderón-Almendros, Ignacio

Abstract

Il pezzo documentaristico presentato è stato creato per promuovere l’inclusione educativa e il cambiamento sociale mostrando, analizzando e promuovendo l’attivismo delle persone con disabilità e del loro ambiente. La scelta del cinema documentaristico come formato audiovisivo risponde alla sua facoltà di strumento di visibilità, denuncia e trasformazione sociale. Questo ci permette di mostrare attraverso varie narrazioni un processo di lotta per rendere effettivo il diritto all’educazione inclusiva, provocando un atteggiamento critico e attivo da parte dello spettatore, che può prendere posizione di fronte a un movimento sociale che ha bisogno di prendere forma.

Obiettivi o scopi

Lo scopo di questa sessione è mostrare il valore del cinema documentaristico come strumento di ricerca che consente l’analisi, la denuncia, la visibilità e la trasformazione di problemi sociali, politici ed educativi. Per fare ciò, viene presentato un pezzo documentaristico costruito insieme alla regista cilena Cecilia Barriga nell’ambito del progetto di ricerca “Narrazioni emergenti sulla scuola inclusiva dal modello sociale della disabilità. Resistenza, resilienza e cambiamento sociale” (RTI2018-099218-A-I00), sviluppato presso l’Università di Malaga (Spagna), e finanziato con fondi europei e dal Ministero della Scienza, dell’Innovazione e delle Università della Spagna. Il documentario mira a promuovere l’educazione inclusiva e il cambiamento sociale mostrando l’attivismo delle persone con disabilità e dei loro ambienti. Cerca di identificare, costruire e promuovere nuove narrazioni sulla disabilità e sulle scuole emanate dalle persone coinvolte nel riconoscimento dei diritti umani.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

The origins of documentary cinema date back to the end of the 19th century, and in 1926, John Grierson used the concept of documentary as a noun for the first time, using it to refer to the documentary value of the film Mohana, by Robert J. Flaherty, for many creators of ethnographic cinema. Grierson believed that in order to achieve true democracy it was necessary to make up for the lack of information that citizens had on social problems, and that cinema should serve to help people understand what was happening in the world (Sellés, 2007).

The use of the documentary resource in educational research responds to the need to identify and build new paradigms and instruments capable of addressing social and educational reality in all its complexity. Current educational issues and social problems require increasingly interdisciplinary approaches capable of providing a more holistic view of reality. Politics, economics, culture, education… are intensely related and in continuous evolution, shaping complex realities that cannot be explained from simple categories. Especially in the study of oppressive realities, like disability (Abberley, 1987; Barton, 1993; Oliver, 1990; Slee, 2011; Calderón & Calderón, 2016), the research position cannot be limited to observing and registering the unjust reality, but the investigative process must be configured in a way of revealing the hidden oppressions, and a positioning together with those who experience inequality in their bodies to transform the living conditions that corner and subordinate them. Among them are schools. For Slee and Allan (2001), ordinary schooling is a form of cultural genocide that denies the legitimacy of differences, which is why inclusion is presented as a struggle to deconstruct the exclusions that schools go through, challenging the naturalization of those inequalities, paying attention to the resistance they have to face and eliminating the existing “silencing mechanisms” in schools, so that the silenced voices can be heard as an affirmation of the struggle (Hooks, 1989).

Educational research, as defended by critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Giroux, 2006; Apple, 2007), must serve to remove consciences and transform realities, to generate movements political resistance, to make schools more democratic places and, above all, to humanize the institution and the reality. This humanization requires the development of critical thinking, an attitude of empathy and deep respect for the material and symbolic conditions in which the school institution and educational processes are installed in a capitalist society. The action of research responds to an exercise of ethical-political involvement. This means that we have to make an important effort to also transform the social relations of research production (Oliver, 2008), recognizing the value of the knowledge that is generated in daily life from the research subjects, which questions the proper forms of academic construction of knowledge, regulation of subjectivities developed by institutions such as schools. In short, we must question our way of positioning ourselves before the reality we study. From this emancipatory paradigm, the object of study is precisely the reconstruction of our relationships.

Documentary cinema is presented as a really valuable tool for this task, since it is a way of producing knowledge that allows the viewer to be informed about a specific social or educational problem, and teaches them what is transformed and how it is transformed (Breschand, 2004 ). This genre is shown as a more or less faithful reflection of the fragment of history of the moment that is recounted (Juncosa and Romaguera, 1997). The documentary confronts us with aspects of reality, past or present, which sometimes causes us rejection, and invites us to commit ourselves to its transformation.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

In the process of preparing this documentary piece, families, researchers and the filmmaker have carried out exhaustive research, approaching the object of study through bibliographic and audiovisual inquiry, observation, dialogical encounters (virtual and face-to-face), collective construction , biographical construction and key informant interviews. To build a framework of meaning, the team had to select the protagonists of the story, reflect on the place they occupied in it, and define significant places, all in continuous negotiation with the protagonists, who became part of the team of investigation.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials

During our presentation we will show the different phases of elaboration of this artistic creation, whose documentary work has been shared by the filmmaker and the research team (made up of families and professionals involved in respecting the right to an inclusive education). From the beginning, various meetings were organized to familiarize the filmmaker Cecilia Barriga with the stories of resistance and resilience of the main protagonists, and to establish a dialogue that would allow identifying and defining the objectives that the documentary should pursue, as well as the reflections that they should underlay. In addition to the filming, audiovisual resources previously generated by the entire group of people behind the audiovisual piece were used: workshops, scientific meetings, state conversations between the educational community, work groups, participatory Action Research processes, biographical interviews, observations, assemblies, focus groups, personal and daily records, collaborative constructions, blog entries, publications in the press and television… A whole range of information collection strategies, processes of construction of new narratives and actions aimed at transforming the daily life.

The documentary tries to show all this series of narratives that respond to the construction of a movement to fight in defense of the rights of minors with disabilities in schools. One of the most significant narratives is the one starring Rubén Calleja and his family, based on their battle against school discrimination suffered by this young man because of his disability. In 2009, this family based in Leon, a region located in the north of Spain, filed their first complaint against the Spanish State in defense of their son’s right to be enrolled in an ordinary educational center. In 2020 the Calleja family obtained a historical sentence, from which the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, 2020) ruled that the Spanish State had violated Rubén’s rights by removing him from the school in which he had been schooled up to eleven years and force him to go to a special education center. This ruling also obliged the Spanish State to compensate the family and guarantee that Rubén could go to an ordinary center to study VET, and it served for the Committee to launch a series of recommendations aimed at eliminating all forms of educational segregation of students with disabilities.

Around this central biographical story, chosen among the group of activists, there is an entire movement, still too silenced, of professionals, families and students who have been building new logics and actions to confront disability in schools, and to call for a strong social movement that aligns itself with other groups in an intersectional struggle to democratize education. And beyond the production of the documentary, there is a whole process that implies the empowerment of the group involved.

Results and/or conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view

L’immaginario sociale costruito attorno alla disabilità e alla diversità ha segnato la vita di molte famiglie, causando sofferenza e un forte senso di solitudine. Le scuole sono state complici nella costruzione di questo immaginario, rifugiandosi in determinate politiche educative che hanno permesso di giustificare numerose situazioni di discriminazione ed esclusione sociale. In questo senso, la realizzazione del documentario, oltre a rendere visibile la realtà quotidiana affrontata da bambini e bambine con disabilità e dalle loro famiglie, ha significato per loro una “guarigione”: ha permesso loro di condividere esperienze, trovare sostegno, riconoscere fessure nel sistema oppressivo e acquisire potere. In sintesi, questa particolare “guarigione” è consistita nel riconoscere e mostrare che la sostanza del problema non risiede nella componente medica e individuale della disabilità, ma nella natura politica che costruisce e mantiene l’attuale interpretazione delle differenze che prevalgono nelle nostre società e scuole.

Per le famiglie coinvolte, il fatto di rievocare le loro storie ha permesso loro di fare il punto sui loro successi e di riconoscere una narrazione sociale di ciò che è accaduto loro: quella che hanno vissuto, ma anche quella che le precede e quella che ora contribuiscono a generare. Un processo che, essendo eminentemente sociale e politico, affronta in comunità il sentimento di solitudine che spesso le invade. In questo modo, il documentario dà inizio a un movimento generato da persone unite da un interesse comune: rendere le nostre società più inclusive, a partire dalle nostre scuole.

Significato scientifico o accademico dello studio o del lavoro

Il documentario è uno strumento di grande valore artistico che offre la possibilità di trascendere le narrazioni delle protagoniste stesse, e di generarne altre possibili dallo sguardo di chi osserva come spettatore. Allo stesso modo, questi spettatori non sono più considerati meri osservatori ma sono invitati a far parte di quel movimento trasformativo.

Questa proposta riflette le possibilità del cinema documentario come fonte di ricerca e trasformazione sociale, evidenziando la necessità di costruire nuovi immaginari collettivi sull’educazione inclusiva, capaci di permeare le politiche e le istituzioni educative al fine di promuovere la convivenza in una società diversa.

Bibliografia

• Abberley, P. (1987). Il concetto di oppressione e lo sviluppo di una teoria sociale della disabilità. Disability, Handicap & Society, 2(1), 5-19.
• Apple, M.W. (2007). Democratic schools: lezioni per un’istruzione efficace. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• Barton, L. (1993). Lezione Inaugurale. University of Sheffield, 17 novembre.http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/barton-inaugral-lecture-barton.pdf
• Breschand, J. (2004). Il documentario: L’altra faccia del cinema. Barcellona: Ediciones Paidós. 
• Breu, R. (2010). Il documentario come strategia educativa. Da Flaherty a Michael Moore. Dieci proposte didattiche. Barcellona: Editorial Graó.
• Calderón-Almendros, I. & Calderón-Almendros, R. (2016). ‘Apro il feretro e sono qui’: la disabilità come oppressione e l’educazione come liberazione nella costruzione dell’identità personale. Disability & Society, 31(1), 100-115.
• Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogia dell’oppresso. Montevideo: Tierra Nueva. Giroux, H. (2006). Il nuovo autoritarismo, la pedagogia critica e la promessa della democrazia. Revista Electrónica Sinéctica, 28, 1-19.
• Hooks, B. (1989). Talking Black: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. New York: Routledge. Juncosa, X e Romaguera, J. (1997). Il cinema. Arte e tecnica del XX secolo. Barcellona: Pòrtic Temes.
• McLaren, P. e Kincheloe, J.L. (Coords.) (2008). Pedagogia critica. Di cosa parliamo, dove siamo. Barcellona: GRAO.
• Oliver, M. (1990). The Politics of Disablement. London: The Macmillan Press.
• Oliver, M. (2008). Changing the Social Relations of Research Production? In L. Barton (Comp.), Overcoming Disabling Barriers: 18 Years of Disability and Society, pp. 267-282. London: Routledge.
• Sellés, M. (2007). El documental. Barcelona: UOC.
• Slee, R. & Allan, J. (2001). Excluding the included: A reconsideration of inclusive education, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 11:2, 173-192. 
• UN CRPD (2020). Views adopted by the Committee under article 5 of the Optional Protocol, concerning communication No. 41/2017. New York: United Nations. https://bit.ly/36OdXKh
• Slee, R. (2011). The Irregular School: Exclusion, Schooling and Inclusive Education. London and New York: Routledge.