Call 19(2): Narratives committed to inclusive education from the voice of the students. Inequalities, resistance and collective action

Call for papers the thematic section of vol19(2) December 2025.

Narratives committed to inclusive education from the voice of the students. Inequalities, resistance and collective action

Guest Editors: Ignacio Calderón Almendros and Mª Teresa Rascón Gómez (University of Málaga, Spain)

Publication date: Volume 19, Issue 2 - 15 December 2025
Deadline: 15 July 2025

The project of making schools inclusive has been put on the international political agenda through major declarations, conventions and even development goals. However, its revolutionary nature has been devalued over time. Today, inclusive education is used to refer even to exclusionary practices, far removed from the initial desire. In this context, the defence of inclusive education with legal arguments seems not to have been sufficient (Skliar, 2010) to carry out the complex task of transforming our education systems, nor have international declarations. Perhaps the focus on national and international policies has limited the scope and depth of the project.

What does this great desire have to do with the lives of our school-age children and young people? How can we construct a narrative that does not depend solely on grand declarations and laws? How can we reposition the debate in the experience of students and their families, and in the complex and delicate task of teaching?

Using the voices of learners as a starting point is an important possibility for re-situating the origin, meaning and value of inclusive education. The experiences of exclusion of students who are not in school, and those who are in, but outside, because the culture, social reality, difficulties and desires of a large part of the students are not taken into account. Those of living far from the learning established as necessary in our school systems, which become unattainable. Those of suffering from a school self-absorbed in the adult world, obsessed with efficiency and productivity, distanced from the needs and desires of the students.

As Fielding (2012) argues, the voice of the student body enables the construction of valuable, rigorous and useful knowledge. But, in addition, their voices resituate the project: starting from the suffering of oppressed children in schools emphasises the connection between knowledge and emotion, and invites collective action. It is impossible to remain lethargic in the face of a system that values some lives more than others (Soldevila, Calderón & Echeita, 2004), that does not take into account the people it seeks to educate, and that does not engage with their opinions to develop changes with more inclusive approaches (Ainscow & Messiou, 2019).

This monograph aims to showcase research, analysis and practical experiences of educational communities, collectives and schools moving towards inclusion through the reconstruction of school culture and the institution from the voice of learners. It will focus on the emergence of voices that are articulated from experience, that are linked to the transformation of reality, and that do so through collective action. We are interested in critical and transformative research, experiences of change in which students are protagonists, who collaborate as agents for inclusion, who resist in the face of injustice and move forward guided by the genuine desire for a possible transformation. Biographical analyses are only welcome if they are linked to collective actions.

The monograph aims to contribute to knowledge about inclusive education through the construction of new emerging narratives based on the voices of students, trying to place them in critical dialogue with the school reality - with its lights and shadows - and the accumulated knowledge about what we have called inclusive education. We are talking about all students, oppressed by adult hegemony in schools, and about each group that is punished for its differences.

There is an unknown knowledge to be built from the real participation that emerges when power is silenced, allowing new stories to be spun and new realities to be constructed (Calderón and Rascón, 2022). These narratives can generate real resistances that can be the basis for cultural revisions, transformations in educational relations and changes in policies, with special attention to school, family and community micro-politics. Critical discourses based on the painful reality experienced by a large part of children and young people inside and outside our schools, but which place us before the possibilities and hopes that only the youngest people - with more future than past - can transmit.

References

Ainscow, M. y Messiou, K. (2018). Engaging with the views of students to promote inclusion in education. Journal of Education Change, 19, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-017- 9312-1

Calderón, I. y Rascón, M. T. (2022). Hilando luchas por el derecho a la educación: Narrativas colectivas y personales para la inclusión desde el modelo social de la discapacidad. Pedagogía Social. Revista Interuniversitaria, 41, 43-54. https://doi.org/10.7179/PSRI_2022.41.03

Fielding, M. (2004). Transformative approaches to student voice: Theoretical underpinnings, recalcitrant realities. British Educational Research Journal, 30(2), 295-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141192042000195236

Skliar, C. (2010). De la razón jurídica hacia una ética peculiar. A propósito del informe mundial sobre el derecho a la educación de personas con discapacidad. Política y Sociedad, 47(1), 153-164. https://tinyurl.com/2aqx4p2h

Soldevila, J., Calderón, I. y Echeita, G. (2024). Mi vida (escolar) es prescindible: radicalizar un discurso contra las miserias del sistema escolar. En J. Collet, M. Naranjo & J. Soldevila (Eds.), Educación inclusiva Global (pp. 41-62). Octaedro. http://doi.org/10.36006/09627-1