Students as subjects. Resistance and collective resilience to challenge barriers to inclusion.

Abstract

In May 2020, during the confinement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a working group was started through online meetings with high school students characterized by their great internal intersectional diversity from different parts of Spain. The starting objective was the construction of a guide aimed at other students to promote their schools to be more inclusive places, but it was finally surpassed. Through a process of Youth led Participatory Action Research and biographical research, the group was discovering the differences and similarities of their school experiences, and strengthened itself to build resistance to the oppressive conditions of several of their school experiences. Little by little they were weaving a valuable support network that managed to awaken an activist movement for the promotion of respect for diversity called ‘Students for Inclusion’.