Barriers and facilitators for leading the development of inclusive school cultures in Chile

ABSTRACT

A school with inclusive orientation should have a leadership team that works to develop a culture that promotes school inclusion. This is a difficult task, due to the administrative demands and excess of responsibilities that school principals and their educational teams have. This is why, this study aims to identify the barriers and facilitators faced by leadership teams to develop an inclusive culture within schools. Within the framework of a case study with an ethnographic focus, participant observations, document analysis, interviews and focus groups were carried out during 8 months in two Chilean schools that exhibit two different levels of development. The main results reveal that the barriers for leadership teams, regardless of the level of development of inclusive cultures, are related to the lack of promotion of student participation and a school leadership focus on the more bureaucratic aspects. However, the school with a higher development of inclusive culture presents less barriers and more facilitators, among which are the commitment of the leadership team to a pedagogical and inclusive focus, appreciation for diversity and promotion of teacher reflection.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• leadership
• school culture
• barriers and facilitators
• Chile

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding was received from doctoral grant 21170256, FONDECYT 3200192 and FONDECYT 1140960.

Notes on contributors

René Valdés

René Valdés is professor and researcher of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at the Andrés Bello University, Chile. He was also a special education teacher (2010), holds a master's in special education and psychopedagogy (2013), and a PhD in psychology (2019). His main lines of research are developed in the field of school learning, inclusive education, school leadership, and interculturality.

Inmaculada Gómez-Hurtado

Inmaculada Gómez-Hurtado is a Associate Professor of Didactic and School Organization at the Department of Pedagogy, Universidad de Huelva (Spain). Her research areas included: Attention to Diversity (inclusive education), Heritage Education, School Organization, and Leadership. Dr. Gómez-Hurtado is a member of the Spanish Network of Research on Leadership and Improvement in Education, RILME, which joins together academics from six universities specialized in the field.