Inclusive Education in the Context of Ethnocultural Diversity: Understanding the Process of Exclusion to Act in the School — A Secondary Publication

Abstract

This paper reveals that the implementation of inclusive education is an unfinished challenge, both within the system and for individual self-improvement. This process of changing practices, by continually questioning the school’s responsibility for the (re)production of inequalities, exclusion, and unequal social relations, is riddled with obstacles, unpredictable situations, and strong emotions. In particular, the researchers point out that many systemic mechanisms of school culture contribute to replicating and reifying hierarchical school experiences and exacerbating processes of institutional discrimination against immigrant backgrounds and/or racialized students. The empirical research presented also highlights the school staff’s deficit thinking toward immigrant students and their parents. The results show that staff tend to use linguistic and cultural gaps between students and the school system to explain academic failure. Be that as it may, the researchers as well as the school actors and students interviewed in this paper suggest multiple ways to improve inclusion in the school context, stressing the importance of giving voice to the various actors in order to move toward institutional transformation.