Entendiendo el discurso de educación inclusiva en el nivel de educación superior

Abstract

The inclusion of diverse students into regular educational settings has become an increasing demand, requiring more extensive preparation from the teachers’ part. Therefore, responding to that phenomenon constitutes one relevant aspect English teachers should consider when facing inclusive classrooms. This study explored some inclusive education discursive practices that seem to maintain and reproduce social asymmetries that transcend the social field. The discussion of the above developed through the lenses of ongoing theoretical constructs, including Inclusive Education: the mantle to Exclude (Ainscow, 2001; Hornby, 2015; Stainback & Stainback, 2013); supported in three sub-sections that from a political perspective provides a panorama about the interrelation of inclusive education, diversity and curriculum. This qualitative study analyzed an official document titled Inclusive Higher Education Policy Guidelines (MEN, 2013), establishing relations with two English Language teacher education programs, and some of their subjects’ syllabi. Principles of SFL (Halliday, 1985; 2014) and CPDA (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012) guided the analysis. Findings revealed that in the discourse of inclusive education has been circulating discourses and sub-discourses that are constructed through inclusion-exclusion constitutive tensions with the prevalence towards one of these two sides affecting how it is approached from the practice. Based on the foregoing, it can be concluded that the discrepancies between the discourses circulating in these texts promote certain exclusionary sociocultural practices such as the invisibility and privileging of specific diversities.