Building inclusive and democratic schools in Spain: strategies for mobilising knowledge on inclusive education through participatory action research

ABSTRACT

This article presents the results of a research on transformation processes for creating more democratic and inclusive schools. Through a multiple case study of four Spanish schools, the authors analyse how the actors involved in participatory action research processes mobilise knowledge on inclusive education. The authors explore the strategies that favour said mobilisation when inclusive, democratic and community curricular practices are implemented. These practices are carried out in schools within the framework of Participatory Action Research (PAR) processes. The results show that collaborative and dialogical practices allow to question the pedagogical practices, and serve for linking contexts (school, territory and university) and mobilising the available knowledge (generate it, apply it, share it and disseminate it).

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge mobilisation
• inclusive education
• democratic schools
• participatory action research

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all interviewees in every school community for their contribution to this article: Primary School Federico de Arce, Childhood and Primary Education School CRA Benavites-Quart, Childhood and Primary School Carlos Cano and Childhood and Primary School Urdaneta.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain): ‘The Included School: Planning and Implementing Curricular Educational Practices Linked to the Territory’ [EDU2013-46491-R] and ‘Making the school part of the community: Planning and implementation of educational curriculum practices linked to the territory’ [EDU2015-68004-R] and ‘Knowledge Mobilisation on Inclusive Education: School Improvement Processes from Participatory Action Research’ [AICO/2018/066].

Notes on contributors

Odet Moliner

Odet Moliner, PhD. is Full Professor in the Department of Pedagogy and Didactics of the CCSS, Language and Literature at the Universitat Jaume I (Spain). Member of the MEICRI Research Group (Educational Improvement and Critical Citizenship) she coordinates the line of research on inclusive education. She is a regular researcher at LISIS (Laboratoire International sur l'inclusion scolaire).

Josefina Lozano

Josefina Lozano is Full Professor at Universidad de Murcia (Spain). She coordinates the EDUCODI Research Group (Communication, Educational Innovation And Attention To Diversity). Her research interest are Intercultural-Inclusive Education And Linkage With The Territory and Methodological Strategies For Dealing With Diversity.

Teresa Aguado

Teresa Aguado is Full Professor on Research Methods and Diagnosis on Education at the UNED, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Spain).Coordinator of the INTER Research Group, she has undertaken research on intercultural education at a national and international level over the last ten years.

Joxe Amiama

José Amiama is Professor at the Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU (Spain). His line of research is inclusive education. He is a researcher colaborator at Laboratoire Epistémologie et Didactiques des Disciplines (Lab-E3D) de l' Université de Bordeaux (Francia).