Abstract
Inclusive Education is an international movement with context-specific implementation. Although sharing the same ideals, each country is following a different path towards the creation of inclusive school systems, in relation to its history in the field of General and, in particular, of Special Education. As a matter of fact, Special Education constituted a pre-established field, whose knowledge and practices merged in the process, according to the specific tradition of each country (Powell, 2014). This doctoral thesis deals with the dilemmatic and unclear relationship between Special and Inclusive Education in formally inclusive school systems. The theoretical discussion involves the ontology and epistemology of both fields, considering their interrelation and the ambiguities in simultaneously combining effective support and intervention for individual needs with social, cultural and structural change for all pupils and students. Finally, it discusses the impact of these unsolved theoretical issues on knowledge and on the implementation of school inclusion. It uses two emblematic examples of the debate in the field: two different traditions in Special Education, those of Italy and Germany, in relation to contextual examples of inclusive school systems and a macro-category of disability, that is of Autistic Spectrum Disorders, as it represents all the challenges of combining individual needs and structural implementation of Inclusive Education. The research project starts from empirical data to produce theoretical reflections about the circumstances under which Special Education becomes a barrier or a facilitator to inclusive processes. It considers the main levels involved in the dialogue between Special and Inclusive Education: philosophical concepts, policies, support system for inclusive education and some examples of practices. Applying a multi-sited case study methodology (Simons, 2009; Stake, 2006) with the ecological approach of Bronfenbrenner Model (Anderson, Boyle, & Deppeler, 2014, p. 28), it deconstructs the cited levels going from macro through meso into micro contexts, in parallel in Italian and German contexts. It reaches the level of practice through a thematic analysis of international and national/regional policies (Italy/Trentino, Germany/Bremen), an exploratory study consisting of interviews with experts and practitioners of support systems in the two and, to conclude, in depth case studies into micro-teaching strategies. All levels focus on ASD, using it as a representative example of the dichotomies existing. The data results show that the polarization between individual/minority and majority is transversal to all levels of analysis: there is a clear and unsolved separation between what is meant for and needed by the majority of pupils (general/ordinary/typical) and what, instead, involves only a minority of pupils or only one specific situation (special/extraordinary/atypical). As conceptualised in the dilemma of difference (Norwich, 2008), this polarization survives as the best option between unideal options. According to the possible interrelation between the two fields, their knowledge and practices, the system develops inclusion, assimilations, adaptations or exclusions. Exclusions are, mostly, the product of the inability of building a dialogue between Special and Inclusive Education. When trying to implement the ideals into practice, the system has to face a lack of knowledge in the interrelation between the two fields which products separated structures, starting from the definition of the rights themselves. The final discussion, based on Morin’s dialogic approach (2000, 2005), suggests a possible reconciliation between the knowledge in the two fields. It moves from the different focuses, individual and social, and tries to combine them in a process of knowledge construction, which has to be democratic, empowering and participatory, in order to create effective strategies for individualization, scientifically proved, contextually located in inclusive school systems, not discriminatory, sustainable and ideally transforming into a community utility. The dialogic production of knowledge is created through the implementation of a model in favor of widespread, dynamic, flexible and not discriminatory individualization. This requires a new approach to assessment, flexible and highly personalised, focused on individual potentials and not deficits, and a way of distributing resources that balances the individual needs with the needs of the school community, starting from common basic needs (Nussbaum, 2003) and a shared idea of human development (Raworth, 2017). In this dialogic development, Special Education becomes a compensatory and temporary measure for the inclusive school system and not for the individual child, progressively being absorbed by the growing field of Universal Education.