Emerging narratives, activism, and the struggle for the right to inclusive education in Spain

Abstract

In 2018, about 100 activists from all over Spain met to carry out a participatory evaluation of the situation of inclusive education in the country. That work (Calderón-Almendros, Moreno-Parra & Vila-Merino, 2024) established the analytical framework for a huge subsequent work through a Participatory Action Research project that has involved more than 700 people in the development of analysis, materials, guides, experiences, campaigns, resistance actions, etc. The different stakeholders —students, families, teachers, support staff— have recovered their agency gradually to become masters of their lives, and to become policymakers in their realities (Calderón-Almendros & Rascón-Gómez, 2020). Their analyses, committed to change, have generated a political agenda that is challenging the control of the educational system over disadvantaged students. The conduct of this study is based on an “ad hoc” methodology, which combines several processes of Participatory Action Research (PAR), recognized for its ability to address uncomfortable truths (Kemmis, 2006), along with biographical and narrative methodology. All this process has led to a social movement under a slogan: 'Inclusive education. Wanting it is creating it’. Nobody is going to do it for them. And if they want it, they have to build it. The results obtained show that the formation of networks of support and mutual resistance favors resilience processes, target structural transformations and act for the bene t of all people in schools.