Superheroes of Inclusion: Understanding How Teachers Define and Unfold Inclusive Classroom Practices

• In Event: Challenging Inequality: The Complex Enactment of Social Inclusion in Education

Abstract

Word count: 475

Objectives

Inclusive education has become a dominant paradigm for addressing student diversity. However, inclusive pedagogical practices are very challenging for teachers. Taking on a posthumanist perspective, the purpose of this study was to understand how Chilean K-12 teachers construct an inclusive classroom practice, how they define these practices, and what subjects and objects they define as agents involved in this construction. We discuss how in the context of weak institutional support and high levels of technical complexity, maintaining sustainable inclusive practices requires advanced professional competencies and a great deal of effort by teachers, leading to the metaphor of the teacher as a superhero of inclusion.

Theoretical Framework

In this study, we take a posthumanist perspective on inclusive educational practices, not only understanding them as socially constructed but also assuming that material objects, and humans, act as agents in the social construction of these practices. Following Shove, Pantzar, and Watson’s (2012) posthumanist theory of social practices, agency is understood as shared by humans and nonhuman entities (Ariztía, 2017), given that both generate performative effects on the world (García, 2010). Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) defined practices as ways of doing or saying that start in the interdependent relations among three essential elements: meanings, competencies, and materials. A practice exists because these three elements actively coexist, specifically in the links among them, and not in any element by itself (Shove, Pantzar, & Watson 2012).

Data and Methods

We used a qualitative descriptive analytic design (Flick, 2004) based on a review of documents produced by 47 teachers from 10 regions of Chile who provided descriptions of classroom practices considered to be inclusive. Data were gathered from proposals sent by schoolteachers to a contest held by a research center to share inclusive classroom practices.

Results

Results showed that inclusive practices narrated by teachers were characterized as being organized and managed by themselves, with a tendency to be innovative and different with respect to traditional classroom practices. In their narratives, teachers described new methodological practices that included enjoyable and didactic educational materials that were not part of the typical repertoire used in the classroom. They also incorporated human pedagogical supports, which took the form of special ed teachers, other classroom teachers, school staff, and parents in the classroom. This new repertoire required an additional amount and variety of teaching competencies in all stages of the pedagogical process, from planning to execution and evaluation. Accordingly, we conclude that the incorporation of a human or material resource that is significantly different to what teachers have routinely used is at the core of the configuration of inclusive practices.

Significance

Our findings suggest that inclusion in regular classrooms is in its initial phases and has not yet been consolidated, but it has started; what triggers change is, in fact, teachers themselves. However, findings also suggest the need to move toward a collective disposition and institutional approach toward inclusion in regular K-12 schools.

Authors

• Veronica Lopez, Universidad Catolica de Chile
  Presenting Author

• Carolina Urbina, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso
  Non-Presenting Author

• Fernanda Alburquerque, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso
  Non-Presenting Author

• Javiera Abarca, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso
  Non-Presenting Author