Keywords

Introduction

Modern mass schooling was conceived, designed and built in various countries around the world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and implemented in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries throughout Europe and the world. Contrary to what is sometimes believed, from the start schools have been an artefact of the elites of the new modern nation states to (re)produce existing inequalities. Thus, both in Spain and all of Europe, schools began as institutions to maintain and reaffirm the existing status quo: one of huge inequality between a bourgeois, aristocratic and religious minority and the vast majority of the population, who were largely farmers, artisans and livestock owners (Pontón, 2017). Even the most prominent members of the French Revolution saw schools as a tool for maintaining the inequalities that the “natural” social order had established over the centuries. Thus, when one wants to understand why it is so difficult to build inclusive schools; if we want to understand why those in favour of educational equity and social justice always have the feeling of rowing against the current; if we want to understand why so many positive initiatives for inclusion in schools run out of steam or end up not being inclusive, often without knowing how or why, it is essential to recognize that for some 200 years we have had a tool for socialising children and young people that includes as an inextricable part of its DNA the (re)production of inequalities, exclusion and segregation (Ball, 2013). Precisely because of this initial bias of schools and the education system towards inequality and exclusion, a few decades after their implementation in various countries in Europe and around the world, and especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, there emerged several attempts to reform the school in more equitable and fairer terms. The struggle for an inclusive school thus has a long history in Spain and throughout Europe of over 150 years. One example is the workers’ school-cultural associations, which were open to children, young people and their families with the purpose of providing global culture and that were very different from the mass schooling of the nation-states that the workers considered a bourgeois entity and against their class interests. There were also the efforts of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution of Teaching) which fought, like the workers’ school-cultural associations, to extend schooling to all children and to transform school life into a positive experience, at a time when schools were heavily marked by discipline, physical and psychological punishment and inequality and segregation. In addition, at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was the modern school of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia who, against the deep grammar of the education systems of the time (Tyack & Tobin, 1994), sought to create an inclusive and mixed school dynamic between genders and social classes. The 1960s and 1970s were once again a period in which the dynamics of exclusion, selection, segregation and the reproduction of inequalities inherent in the school system were strongly criticised. It included the deschooling movement led by I. Illich, J. Holt and E. Reimer that proposed rejecting schools and socialising children and young people through the community, new technologies, etc.; the compelling reports of Coleman in the USA and Bourdieu and Passeron in France denouncing an education system that valued family capital more than individual work and ‘merit’ (Sandel, 2020); and the 1978 Warnock report in the UK that put on the table a fourth source of exclusion, inequality and injustice that operates both by itself and in strong intersection with those of social class, gender and race: what was defined at that time as Special Educational Needs (SEN).

In the fight for equality and educational justice, in 1994 UNESCO presented the Salamanca Statement, which together with its subsequent developments, has been one of the most serious and powerful contributions in the last 150 years to reshape, reprogramme and reorient schools in an inclusive direction. As stated in the International Journal of Inclusive Education’s monograph on the 25th anniversary of the Statement, there have been many achievements, and it shows that “this legacy continues to have a major impact on thinking, policy and practices in the field” (Ainscow et al., 2019, p. 675). For example, at the theoretical level, the Incheon Declaration “emphasises inclusion and equity as laying the foundations for quality education. It also stresses the need to address all forms of exclusion and marginalisation, disparities and inequalities in access, participation, and learning processes and outcomes” (2019, p. 672). Or the fact that, for example in Spain, in recent years there has been a clear promotion of both policies and practices that have been incorporated into different regions in order to move towards the inclusion of children in ordinary schools (Manzano-Soto et al., 2021). Despite all these advances in recent years, there are obstacles to inclusion since it is forced to grow in a political and social framework where exclusion remains part of the DNA of school education (Slee, 2018), where capitalism promotes a scenario in which the most important thing is profit at any cost, leaving aside ethics, the common good and solidarity (Ovejero, 2014), and where neoliberalism and neoconservatism foster its own exclusionary and segregating tendencies (Springer, 2016; Collet-Sabé & Grinberg, 2022).

We are therefore faced with major challenges because, on the one hand, we know that “inclusive schools and inclusive education continue to be the cornerstones for moving towards a more equitable and just society for all” (Saleh, 2015, p. 29). But on the other hand, for this to happen it is necessary to change the school DNA, to reprogramme the hardware of the education system and transform the deep grammar of schools, which is no easy task either in Spain or anywhere else (Marchesi, 2019; Florian & Camedda, 2020). And it is precisely this task to which this book is committed. A book that starts from the analysis of both these major challenges that are still pending and of various inclusive practices, policies and proposals that promote this structural transformation of education and everything that conditions it. And to do so, the book combines learnings, analyses and reflections based on the experience of Spanish reality in a constant dialogue with international research, concepts and experiences. The core idea of this book is therefore this: to continue advancing decisively and forcefully in this essential process of genetic mutation of schools, in this reprogramming of its hardware that is based on inequality, exclusion and segregation. We need to take a leap forward in our approach to inclusion: we need a new educational grammar that is globally aligned with inclusion, equity and justice. This leap is what we propose to develop throughout this book under the name of Global Inclusive Education (GIE), a perspective that involves understanding that classrooms and schools, on their own, encounter insurmountable difficulties to progress towards inclusion in a concrete, real, effective and everyday manner. As a result, this process of reprogramming towards inclusion must take place, at the same time and in a coherent way, in the classroom, in the school as a whole (classrooms, schoolyard, dining room, corridors etc.) and in all the agents (school leadership, teachers, school staff, support teachers etc.), the families, and non-formal education of the region and community. GIE is thus based on the learnings and evidence of Spanish and international experience (Ainscow, 2020; Baena et al., 2020; Simón et al., 2021; Porter & Towell, 2020), which tells us that if we wish to build a real, fair and effective inclusive education for all pupils, it can only be done if this perspective integrates the classroom, the whole school, the families and the community. This chapter provides an introduction to what the Global Inclusive Education perspective means, a brief explanation of the structure of the book and how the various chapters can contribute to improving practices from the classroom to the community, and a response to the challenges set out in the national and international agendas.

The Global Inclusive Education (GIE) Perspective

As we said before, inclusive education, equity and educational justice have been on the agendas of governments, universities, research institutions, schools, and social organisations such as UNESCO and the OECD for many years. More than 25 years have passed since the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), with many experiences and learnings assimilated. At the same time, lessons from international experiences and the last UNESCO GEM report (2020) suggest that there are still multiple questions, challenges and pathways to explore. The University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia (Uvic-UCC) (Barcelona) and the Spanish and international research network it works with, have been directly involved in exploring the best ways of transforming both everyday educational realities and deep education grammar into more inclusive and socially equitable ones. This book will draw on the findings of the Spanish and international research groups to address the question of how inclusion can be carried out in very real, effective, concrete and everyday ways – from the classrooms to the community, including schools, pupils, teachers and families – and how researchers can work hand in hand with the professionals and other stakeholders who are developing their practices day by day.

The approach to addressing some of the existing tensions, barriers and complexities in the process of improving educational inclusivity, equity and justice is presented, based on real proposals and explored through the studies developed by these research groups. These proposals are accompanied by an analysis of aspects that may be of interest for rethinking current practices, cultures, policies and research at an international level. As a result, the central focus of the book is to present the results of the research on inclusive education in Spain, in dialogue with the rest of Europe and the world, in its globality and complexity. The Spanish experience, the research on which this book is based, shows us how there are more difficulties to achieve real or effective inclusion in a classroom or for a child if this is not globally connected to, and integrated with, the whole school, all families and the whole community. That is, inclusive education cannot be, as has been attempted on so many occasions in Spain, a mere surgical, superficial, technical and neutral intervention that is reduced to, and only focuses on, children with SEN (Arnaiz & Soto, 2003); migrant background groups and the racism that some families and children have to experience (Gibson & Carrasco, 2009), because “education policy is not designed to eliminate racial inequality but to sustain it at manageable levels” (Gillborn, 2008); “hard-to-reach” families (Beneyto et al., 2019; Collet-Sabé & Olmedo, 2021) or deprived communities (Collet-Sabé & Subirats, 2016). Inclusive education must be global, deep and political and explicitly aims to reshape the DNA of the school, its software and its deep rationality and dynamics. To meet this challenge, it needs to encompass globally all the activity in the classroom, school, families and community by transforming the deep logics of the school; otherwise, it cannot be really inclusive.

Specifically, the Global Inclusive Education perspective is based on concepts that account for its complex and demanding nature, with a specific way of conceiving inclusive education and, in consequence, the need to work in a coherent and interconnected fashion at different levels, in different areas and with different agents and dynamics. That is why the concept of Global Inclusive Education seeks to articulate five dimensions, of both analysis and action, as a tool to continue moving forward clearly and forcefully in the deep transformation of the DNA of schools and all education on its path towards equity, justice and inclusion. Thus, GIE must be, simultaneously:

  1. (a)

    Systemic and intersystemic. That is, that inclusion is inherent in the logic of the different levels of configuration, analysis and intervention of the educational practices of schools and the education system (Bronfenbrenner, 1992). The different levels would be, following ecological systems theory (1) The classroom as a micro level; (2) the school and families at the next higher level; (3) then the education system at the next level; and, finally (4) the social, political and economic system specified territorially in the different communities. GIE focuses on the need for interrelationship, coherence and joint guidance between systems. To put it succinctly, if it is not “global”, it cannot be considered inclusive. Hence the need to consider inclusion in its global dimension and, therefore, the interaction between systems, networking between actors and their orientation towards a reprogramming of the school based on inclusive software.

  2. (b)

    Inbuilt. Inclusion cannot be considered within each system or agent in an isolated or segmented way. Neither horizontal segmentation (of agents) nor vertical segmentation (of levels of configuration, analysis and intervention of the educational practices). Therefore, inclusion within the systems themselves, between systems, between rationalities and logics of action and between actors needs to be oriented and aligned in a global way. For example, as we have begun to detect in Spain (Baena et al., 2020), educational innovation can promote educational processes and practices that are contradictory and that clash head-on with inclusion. Or what may happen is that the policy on inclusion becomes blurred into specific educational practices that end up being exclusive, so that there are segregating practices by some agents within the framework of inclusive policies. In Spain, special education schools that profess to be inclusive could be the clearest answer (Calderón-Almendros, 2018), as well as the exclusive use of some resources like teachers to support inclusion (Soldevila et al., 2017).

  3. (c)

    Embedded. By this dimension we mean that GIE has to be embedded and must be able to infuse, orient and configure every educational context and their practices. There is no one (good) way of doing inclusive education if inclusive education is a shared horizon, taken for granted, a new DNA, a new logic that is embedded and reconfigures in a contextual and concrete way in all the practices and in all the levels, systems and actors and their relationships.

  4. (d)

    Qualitative. GIE cannot be understood (only) in numerical or statistical terms but in terms of quality and experience. GIE is neither neutral nor generic and therefore is not measurable with generic numerical indicators; rather, it is contextual, qualitative and experiential. Quantitative evidence may provide certain elements for evaluation, but it cannot become a disciplinary technology that promotes policies, cultures and practices developed within the framework of different education systems that are more likely to be well placed in standardised quantitative analysis than in advancing towards a real and satisfying experience of inclusion for all students. This is something that already occurs with international standardised tests and the dynamics of teaching to the test, for example (Collet-Sabé & Ball, 2020). This is a particularly relevant aspect since meritocracy underpins most systems (from school to university), allowing society and its social organisations to be governed by numbers (Mills, 2018) – and more so when the perverse effect of numbers has already been researched (Lingard & Sellar, 2013).

  5. (e)

    Ethos. Finally, Global Inclusive Education cannot be proposed just “because it is the thing to do now”, as if it were a fad, but because it has an ethical, educational and social meaning. The process of inclusive education should not be a matter of opinion or position; it is, above all, a question of rights and social justice, as is evident in the many declarations and laws (which we will see throughout the chapters) that Spain, among many other countries, has ratified. It is above all in this sense, therefore, that it is incoherent that under the alleged protection of states, situations of exclusion occur and, therefore, the need to dismantle the DNA of education at the root is even clearer, triggering the breakdown of school grammars that lead to the constant violation of people’s rights. “People, are people”, as one girl said in an interview that was part of a research project carried out in a primary school (Soldevila et al., 2016). These apparently simple words encompass great complexity. If “people, are people”, there should be no discriminatory distinction between people under the protection of rights. So why does everybody not have the same rights? And why can some go to the school of their relatives and neighbours while others are forced to move and live their daily lives in a segregated way? Why are some students destined to go to ghetto schools because they were born into low-income families? Why can gender mark your destiny? What kind of world do we want to live in, what kind of society do we want?

Defined and conceptualised in this way, GIE aims to understand education in a broad sense and, at the same time, to advance in certain educational debates that generate unresolved tensions or even inconsistencies in the decision-making of policies, cultures and educational practices that end up becoming obstacles in the path towards inclusion.

First, we identify the debate, sometimes posed in terms of equilibrium, between equity and excellence. Equity should ineludibly provide the “same” learning opportunities for all. It is precisely at this point that the construct of excellence comes into play, defined as the guarantee that every student in the classroom will reach their full potential for development and, therefore, learning. In this way, equity and excellence go hand in hand, without there being any tension between the two. Quite the opposite, there is an interdependence and mutual and indivisible interrelationship. In what cases, then, does this debate, this tension between equity and excellence arise? – when we understand excellence as the impetus and promotion of a specific elite, within the students, that marks a difference in terms of performance, competence and learning with respect to their fellow students. Understood in this way (as it is still understood and vindicated by different groups within the education system), it generates a process of segregation, exclusion and inequality that goes beyond the walls of the school and is transferred, directly and obviously, to society. There is therefore an urgent need to seek a way of conceiving educational excellence that is not detached or decoupled at any moment or at any point from the equity that should guide the purpose of education (Tharp et al., 2002).

Second, and as a consequence of the above, there is the eternal debate about whether education should promote the individual development or social development of students. This dis(equilibrium) between seemingly opposing forces generates a conflict inherent in the way the educational process is understood and approached. It is obvious that, when considering the integral development of the individual, we must somehow incorporate the competence that allows him/her (or will allow the individual in the future) to become an active member of society. However, we continue to ask ourselves what is a priority and fundamental to consider from an educational point of view? The reply to this question brings in psychoeducational positions that we cannot avoid. For example, considering that children develop “naturally”, “biologically” or “organically” and go through stages, or that they develop with and thanks to “others” that provide the conditions to generate zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1995; Wertsch, 1984). Without wishing to delve into this debate, but rather as a way out of it, we argue that the function of school education is to develop and promote the development of the individual in a social context. That is, in no way can individual development be detached from the context in which it occurs, nor from the interactions that, to a large extent, make it possible to occur. That is why the concept of GIE takes on its full meaning: understanding education in a contextual and social dimension directly impacts that fact that we cannot understand an inclusive society if we have not previously been capable of building an inclusive school.

Third and lastly, and precisely because of what we have just stated, there is a latent contradiction in pursuing the ideal of an inclusive society without considering that the prior and essential step is to make schools inclusive.

The Book Structure

The book is structured, both in terms of analysis and proposals, in precisely these four dimensions: classroom, school, families and community. A perspective and a challenge that shows that, in order to be a real and effective solution for all, inclusion must be integrative and global and encompass all four.

Before beginning the first section, Jesús Soldevila-Pérez, Ignacio Calderon-Almendros and Gerardo Echeita, (from the University of Vic–Central University of Catalonia, the University of Málaga and the Autonomous University of Madrid) promote open reflection and discussion on inclusive education as a matter, among other considerations, of and for social justice. To support this task, they draw on the wealth of theoretical, experiential and practical knowledge that has accumulated on this topic, at an almost exponential rate, since the 1990s, and that has enabled significant progress. But certain questions have also been raised that need to be considered if we are to avoid repeating errors of the past and to rethink future steps as well as we can. In this context, this chapter does not intend to assemble the available knowledge, which is extremely difficult given that the development of a more inclusive education involves all the elements of an education system. Rather, its aim is to generate a debate around some aspects that are emerging as significant, particularly those related to the opportunity, or otherwise, to converge with perspectives and proposals such as those of education for social justice, equality and global citizenship. Its purpose is to highlight the way in which systems of oppression intersect and constitute each other, as well as ways to confront them through education in order to build fairer societies. Perspectives and paths that undoubtedly share common denominators that should enable important synergies for the much-needed and urgent transformation of education, but also differential aspects that, from their unique nature, should nonetheless contribute to the recognition of the equal dignity and rights of all learners, without exclusions, to an education of quality.

The first section addresses the classroom. The first chapter, by Gemma Riera, Teresa Segués and José Ramón Lago (from the UVIC-UCC) focuses on how cooperative learning can contribute to the development of cohesion, equity and inclusion. They start by reviewing the research on inclusion and cooperative learning, and go on to outline the research developed by the Research Group in Attention to Diversity of the UVic-UCC and to present the Cooperating to Learn/Learning to Cooperate proposal and the Support Teach Cooperate strategy. In the first part, they review the theoretical principles of these proposals that link inclusion, people at risk of exclusion and cooperative learning and the concepts of equitable participation, peer interaction and mutual support, as the foundation of cooperative learning. In the second part, they present the meaning, objectives and fundamental characteristics of the instruments that promote the cohesion of class groups and cooperative learning teams, proposals for cooperative structures for team learning, and resources and strategies for learning to cooperate when we work as a team. In the third part, they examine criteria and procedures for supporting schools and teachers for the introduction, generalisation and consolidation of cooperative learning as an instrument for inclusion.

In the second chapter, Verónica Jiménez and Mila Naranjo (from the UVIC-UCC) point to assessment as one of the key elements for generating inclusion or segregation in the classroom, based on a long history of counselling in Spanish schools. They present, from both a theoretical-conceptual and technical-practical perspective, the characteristics that assessment must have within a teaching and learning process for it to be inclusive. To do this, they will move from the most general level of decision-making about assessment, namely the Assessment Approach, where the teacher plans and develops the assessment, to the most concrete level, namely the Assignment that is found within the assessment instrument. The chapter highlights the need to align educational practices with assessment practices within the same teaching and learning process in order to ensure that it remains inclusive, both with regard to the pedagogical function of assessment aimed at improving the formative action of the teacher and to the self-regulation process of the pupils, as well as to the social function of assessment that provides qualification or accreditation of the learning results of the pupils.

Finally, the third chapter in this section, by Dolors Forteza-Forteza, Joan Jordi Muntaner-Guasp, and Odet Moliner-García (from the University of the Balearic Islands and Jaume I University) focuses on support in the inclusive classroom. They discuss and delve into the knowledge and analysis of different models, organisations and possibilities of support that enable inclusive experiences in the classroom, and that break with the therapeutic and compensatory models that discriminate and segregate pupils. They understand the different kinds of support as strategies and resources, both human and material, that facilitate diversification of learning opportunities in the classroom so that any pupil can develop to the full potential and achieve success in school. Support is considered from a collaborative and institutional perspective, with collaboration understood as a basic activity, taking into account an integrative vision of the school. The chapter presents research and proposals for action where the general support available in schools and the classroom promotes participation and learning with equity and quality.

The second section, focused on the school as an institution, begins with a chapter by Javier Onrubia, José Ramón Lago and Mª Ángeles Parrilla (from the University of Barcelona, the UVIC-UCC, and the University of Vigo) on how inclusion is a great opportunity for schools, internationally, to innovate and improve all their practices, cultures and policies from the perspective of Global Inclusive Education. The chapter presents and discusses two converging strategies for constructing and improving educational practices in an inclusive direction: collaborative consultation for the improvement of teaching practices and participatory research. Both strategies are characterised by a collaborative approach and by understanding inclusion not only as an objective for the improvement of educational practices but also as a vital part of the improvement process itself. The conceptual references of both strategies are presented, and the basic criteria that govern the improvement processes in both cases are discussed and exemplified, as are the main phases in which these processes are situated. The complementary nature of both strategies is highlighted and pending issues and proposals to advance the design and development of improvement processes from that complementarity are discussed.

This section’s second chapter, written by Martin Mills and Haira Gandolfi (from Queensland University of Technology/University College London and the University of Cambridge), pays a ‘homage to Catalonia’ by exploring the lives and struggles of three former school teachers in England who have a close affiliation with anarchist ideals in their practice and views of education. Drawing on scholarship around anarchist thinking and education, social justice, and utopian frameworks, they explore how these radical teachers envision and work towards a more inclusive and socially just education system (and society), including the motivations, costs and rewards that are associated with this kind of work. The chapter then outlines these teachers’ efforts in critiquing the mainstream education sector while still working from within it, their subsequent trajectories out of the sector, and their different attempts at building a new, more inclusive and socially just education system through utopian thinking and practice.

The third section focuses on the role of families and the community and their essential involvement and participation in Global Inclusive Education for the real and effective achievement of inclusion and social justice. In its first chapter, Jordi Collet, Sara Joiko and Cecilia Simón (from the UVIC-UCC, UNAP Institute of International Studies in Chile and the Autonomous University of Madrid) point out, in a comparative study of Chile and Spain, the paradoxes, contradictions and obstacles that can be identified in the essential incorporation of families into practices, cultures and policies for inclusion and justice. Furthermore, in both countries, the participation of families has been placed at the centre of current educational policies in order to promote a school system based on equity and social justice. Specifically, they analyse how different types of families, primarily ‘white middle-class families’, facilitate or hinder inclusive practices, cultures and policies related to three dimensions: school choice and school segregation; relationship with “other” families, especially those with a migrant background; and, last but not least, the paradoxical role of families with regard to special education schools. In this analysis, concepts such as exclusion, meritocracy and diversity – which are all very well known in inclusive education – also become part of the narratives of families to address these three dimensions. The chapter concludes with issues related to families that can be both a risk or an opportunity for inclusive education.

In its second chapter, Mar Beneyto, Jordi Collet and Marta Garcia (from the UVic – UCC and the University of Girona) place the community and the city as necessary allies when it comes to building an inclusion that is truly and effectively integrative and global. They examine how different research situates the great importance of agents and spaces such as town halls, public entities and associations, town planning, museums, sports clubs and so forth in a region and their role in the shared commitment to an inclusive education. As the 1994 Charter of Educating Cities pointed out, all education, both inside and outside the school, formal, non-formal and informal, are keys in the socialisation processes of children. And those communities that do not share the principles of an inclusive education with rights, equity and justice for all children are causing significant harm, as some of the research we present shows, to the processes of inclusion that are often present within schools.

The last chapter of this section, by Kyriaki Messiou, Núria Simó-Gil, Antoni Tort-Bardolet and Laura Farré-Riera (from the University of Southampton and the UVIC-UCC) link the work for inclusion with the struggle to achieve more democratic and equitable societies. This chapter argues for the need to engage with students’ voices in schools to promote inclusive and democratic learning contexts. First, the chapter introduces a theoretical framework about inclusive and democratic education and points out two polysemous and controversial concepts with elements of convergence: students’ voices and participation in schools. Second, illustrative examples from research in primary and secondary schools that focused on students’ voices are discussed. Examples from research in primary schools where students’ voices were used as a key to develop inclusive education practices are presented. Listening to students’ voices is closely related to notions of inclusion, since theories of inclusion support the idea of valuing all members’ views. Research on student participation in democratic secondary schools, which examined four areas of democratic participation are then described, followed by attempts to explore how a democratic school is conceived in relation to student participation. Finally, different challenges and opportunities that emerge in primary and secondary schools that adopt student voice approaches are discussed in order to understand the link between the students’ role and the promotion of inclusive and democratic education in schools.

In the final chapter, the editors Jesús Soldevila-Pérez, Mila Naranjo and Jordi Collet, bring together and summarise some of the most important ideas that have been presented throughout the book, deploying the Global Inclusive Education Perspective as both a tool and a challenge.