The role of the leadership team on inclusion policies in Chile

Abstract

This article reports the results of a documentary study on inclusion educational policies in order to get to know the demands that are assigned to leadership teams in the context of the New Public Management (NGP, for its name in Spanish) in Chile. Using a qualitative approach, 26 official texts were analyzed through the pragmatic discourse analysis technique. The results show that the main request to leadership teams is that they take responsibility for curricular coverage and the academic results through adult-centered collaborative work and the administration of resources, protocols, and management instruments. The implications of this study provide guidelines to rethink the analysis of educational policies.

Keywords:

• school leadership
• inclusion
• educational policy
• discourse analysis

1. Introduction

In educational and educational policy literature, Chile is recognized as an emblematic case for New Public Management (NGP; Sisto, 2019). NGP is a management model that sets typical private world principles in the public sector with the goal of achieving total efficiency (Verger & Curran, 2014). A way of illustrating this scenario is to observe how educational quality is understood in Chile. More specifically, 2011 saw the birth of the National System of Quality Assurance for Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education and its oversight (Law Number 20.529). This system creates, among other institutions, an organization called the Agency for Quality Education that evaluates and guides schools to contribute to the improvement of academic results. For this purpose, each year the Agency for Quality Education performs an evaluation and categorization of schools with the labels of high, medium, medium-low, and insufficient. These labels are assigned according to the results obtained on a group of quality indicators in a standardized test called Quality Education Measurement System (Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación or SIMCE, for its name in Spanish), which has been applied since the end of the military dictatorship (1988). One of the most representative effects of this policy is that high-performing schools are rewarded, acknowledged, and are granted higher autonomy levels. On the contrary, schools that do not achieve the expected results are at risk of closure and may have their official recognition revoked by the Ministry of Education (Mineduc, for its name in Spanish) (Law 20.248,2008).

International and national literature agree that a scenario based on NGP principles fosters great educational inequality and promotes segregation, discrimination and exclusion of students that do not conform to their educational standards. This poses an important problem, since students more seriously affected by this are those from more socially vulnerable contexts (Bellei, 2015; Falabella, 2020; Fardella, 2012; Koretz, 2018; Sisto, 2019; Verger et al., 2019; Verger & Parcerisa, 2018).

As a way of counteracting the effects of the rationality of NGP in Chile during the last 10 years, a series of inclusion policies have been enacted. The goal is that schools respond to diversity, receive government support and reduce school segregation and inequality (Ramírez-Casas Del Valle & Valdés, 2019). The main recipients of these policies are students with disabilities, learning difficulties, or those who belong to migrant communities. This supposes a contribution towards a progressive inclusion discourse in the Chilean educational system.

Chilean public schools are continually torn between a double command. On one hand, they must abide by inclusion policies, but at the same time, they must demonstrate the competences of standardized tests that NGP promotes (Manghi et al., 2020). The fundamental problem is that the principles of the NGP (such as oversight, accountability or competition) are opposed to the principles of inclusion (such as community work, collaboration and a focus on rights; Lerena & Trejos, 2015; Sisto, 2018). This double command contributes to a school scenario that is tense, contradictory and paradoxical in order to lead the way towards an inclusive school (Angeliki Mikelatou & Arvanitis, 2021; Dougherty & Weiner, 2019).

In daily practice, this issue must be resolved by the leadership teams who, from an educational policy perspective, are responsible for conducting the inclusion process while guiding schools to achieve school effectiveness indicators (Bellei, 2015; Ministerio de Educación, 2020b). In this context, it is important to know the ideal leadership team prescribed by educational policy in order to discuss its implications for the development of an inclusive school in the midst of an educational scenario where goals, indicators, and school efficacy achievements, stimulated by the principles of NGP, are a priority. This means that there is a problem that must be studied and that requires further research and empirical support. This article reports the results of a documentary study of educational policies of inclusion in order to get to know the demands that are required from leadership teams in the context of the New Public Management (NGP) in Chile.

2. New public management in chile

New Public Management (NGP) is a philosophical body of management ideas that are transmitted from the private sector to the public world with the purpose of making it more competitive and efficient (Verger & Curran, 2014). According to the literature (Falabella, 2020; Gewirtz & Ball, 2000; Pollitt, 1995; Verger et al., 2019; Verger & Normand, 2015) the main characteristics of this management model are: (1) it favors management styles and instruments from the private world, (2) includes more explicit performance rules and regulations (3) introduces values and indicators with a focus on the results rather than on the process, (4) generates disaggregation and decentralization of public services, (5) stresses the importance of competition as an incentive for achievement and (6) introduces fixed-term contracts, payment according to performance and limited budget according to standards. This model, with its geographical and historical differences, was rapidly established in developed and developing countries, and in particular in the education field (Verger & Curran, 2014).

In the case of Chile, the NGP was born in the 80ʹs, halfway through a military dictatorship, as a way of reorganizing school management towards a decentralized educational system, with greater protagonism of the private sector and financing per enrolled student, which implied new ways of subsidization, competition, resources and government oversight. These aspects were not questioned after the dictatorship, to the contrary, evidence shows the NGP model became more radical (Bellei, 2015; Slachevsky, 2015), an aspect that cannot be completely developed in this article. A small example of this is the protagonism that the SIMCE has acquired as a standardized high-stakes test that evaluates school performance. As Bellei (2020) ironically points out, the SIMCE test seems to be a multi-purpose tool, since it allows ranking schools, allocation of funds, ordering interventions, running diagnostics, and even closing schools.

The following quote is part of the presidential speech of Sebastián Piñera in 2010, one year before the creation of the National System for Education Quality Assurance (which created the Agency for Quality Education):

Parents need more and better information to choose the best school for their children. For this purpose, we will send them by mail, along to a personal letter from the President of the Republic, the results of the next Simce test by school to all parents, and not only to the parents of the classes that took the test. They will also receive a map with the results of all the schools in their city. In addition, we will establish prizes and incentives for those students, teachers and schools that significantly improve their performance (Presidential speech, 2010).

The previous paragraph presents parents as clients, refers to school incentives and prizes and highlights the importance of the SIMCE test. This summarizes the educational policy paradigm of the last 30 years in Chile (Fardella, 2013). It is possible then, to assume that school inclusion is not a part of an educational environment that provides generous possibilities. On the contrary, it is built on a NGP model that according to literature has brought negative consequences such as segregation, competition between schools, de-contextualization of the educational process, difficulties to influence the political field, teacher de-professionalization, stress and problems to understand educational goals and management of diversity (Allbright & Marsh, 2020; Falabella, 2014; Gewirtz & Ball, 2000; Jerrim & Sims, 2021; Shannon & Saatcioglu, 2018; Zancajo, 2020).

3. Inclusive education and school leadership

As a way of offering a more fair and inclusive education, during the last decades there has been decrees, laws and norms in Chile to guarantee inclusive processes. From the creation of the Special Education modality in the 70ʹs, to the social integration for people with disabilities (1994), differential groups (1999), a national special education policy (2005), school integration programs (2009), the School Subsidies Law (2007), the Social Inclusion Law (2013), and the School Inclusion Law (2015), all of them have in some way, helped the progress of the establishment of inclusion in the Chilean educational system. However, the results have not been so favorable and are clearly integrationist, focused on the medical aspect, and influenced by the NGP (Lerena & Trejos, 2015; López et al., 2014).

We will use three laws as examples to characterize, from an inclusive perspective, the current Chilean educational system: (1) Law 20,201 about School Integration Programs (2007), (2) Law 20.248 on Preferential School Subsidies (2007) and (3) Law 20,845 of School Inclusion (2015). Regarding the first, School Integration Programs (PIE) are an inclusive strategy of the educational system that has the purpose of providing a financial subsidy to schools in order to favor classroom learning of students with Special Educational Needs (NEE, for its name in Spanish). The second, Law 20.248 on Preferential School Subsidy (2007), aims to contribute to equal opportunities through additional resources for each student living in poverty conditions. This law provides more resources under the commitment that these benefits will improve the results of standardized tests (SIMCE). The third is Law 20.845 on School Inclusion (2015), which intends to eliminate all forms of arbitrary discrimination that hinder learning and participation. It also puts an end to school selection, shared financing (a way of reducing segregation as a product of the ability of parents to pay) and forbids profit in schools that receive government funding. In the case of Chile, inclusion is understood as a model that identifies and responds to the diversity of needs and characteristics of children, youth, and adults, considering educational centers as equitable places, with neither inequality nor discrimination to guarantee learning (Law Number 21,040, 2017).

Despite the efforts invested in these educational policies, the same marketing and competition principles that are typical of NGP continue to prevail. Schools that have a good performance in standardized tests are currently considered as quality institutions, failing to make visible those practices or conditions that could be hindering inclusion within schools. This poses challenges for the leadership teams who are, from an educational policy standpoint, directly responsible for both leading inclusion as well as ensuring good academic results (Quiroga & Aravena, 2018; Valdés, 2018).

Educational research on school leadership from an inclusive perspective, points at leadership teams as key members in the management of an inclusive school (Gómez-Hurtado, 2014; León, 2012; Ryan, 2016; Valdés, 2020). This means that the leadership team that plays a central role in guiding the inclusion processes. This places leadership teams as a key figure of influence and mobilization (Mineduc, 2015). In specialized literature this is known as “inclusive leadership style” or leadership for inclusion (Gómez-Hurtado, 2013; Mor Bakar et al., 2021; Ryan, 2016; Morrisey, 2021; Harris y Chapman, 2002; Kugelmass, 2003; Muijs et al., 2007; Murillo et al., 2010). This type of leadership implies the following: (a) responsibility relies not only on the principal but on other leaderships that are also acknowledged; (b) all leaders, whether formal or not, defend inclusion as a model and are committed to their proposals; (c) it seeks to minimize situations of social injustice, whether among adults or students; (d) leaders develop an inclusive, democratic and participative school culture; (e) there is a direct implication on management and attention to diversity. From these proposals, school leaders must conduct schools towards a genuine inclusion model (Booth & Ainscow, 2015). In the case of Chile, leadership teams are comprised by the school principal, a chief of the technical pedagogical unit, and an inspector who is in charge of monitoring the compliance of internal regulations.

It then becomes necessary to consolidate leadership teams in schools that, within an NGP context, develop inclusive leadership that contributes to the transformation of school communities and the defense of inclusion (Ramírez-Casas Del Valle & Valdés, 2019). In order to develop this task, inclusive leadership has become a safe bet to address the tension between inclusion and NGP (Ainscow & Sandill, 2010; Ryan, 2016; Sisto, 2019; Valdés, 2020), since inclusive leadership is first and foremost a leadership that is critical of a system that does not favor inclusion, equality and social justice. However, these elements require further investigation and empirical support. In this scenario of ambiguity and contradiction, it becomes necessary to inquire about the demands that are assigned to leadership teams regarding inclusion policies in Chile.

4. Methodology

4.1. Approach and design

Considering the object of study, a qualitative research approach was chosen (Flick, 2015) as well as the documentary review method (Hochman & Montero, 2005). According to Prior (2008) the study of documents can exceed the understanding of the explicit and move towards an interpretative-pragmatic analysis. Therefore, it is understood that texts do not matter so much because of their content, but for their ability to organize and produce social orders (Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996). This approach considers documents as discursive practices and therefore the analysis focuses on the study of its function (Wetherell, 1998), which in the case of this work, is centered on the figure of the leadership team.

4.2. Sample

The selection of documents is guided by the principle of representativity (Íñiguez & Antaki, 1994), since the selected texts are relevant in their function to guide actions and concrete practices in the field of inclusion and in addition, because they make discursive products evident for the analysis of the study unit. In order to choose the textual corpus, official documents on inclusion from the last 10 years were selected, which resulted in 40 texts. From these, those which contained tasks for school leaders were selected. Finally, the textual corpus was composed by 16 official documents (laws, decrees, ordinary and guiding documents) about inclusion between years 2011 and 2020 (see Table 1). Each one of these documents directly and indirectly affect the work of the leadership team in the school inclusion field.

Table 1. Textual corpus per year and source

Year	Source	Document
2011	Ministry Document	Guidelines to provide educational answers to diversity and Special Educational Needs.
2013	Ministry Document	Technical Guidelines for School Integration Programs.
2015a	Ministry Document	Technical Guidelines for the High School Retention Plan.
2015b	Law	School Inclusion Law N° 20.845
2015	Decree	Decree N° 83: Diversification of Teaching
2016	Ministry Document	Guidelines for the building of inclusive educational communities.
2017a	Presidential Instruction	Ordinary Document N° 608. Internal guidelines to favor the inclusion of foreign students in the educational system.
2017b	Ministry Document	Technical guidelines for the educational inclusion of foreign Students.
2017c	Ministry Document	Guidelines on Diversified Teaching Strategies for Elementary Education within the context of Decree 83/2015.
2017d	Ministry Document	Instruction Manual to support schools and Administrators/Owners, for the Implementation of the School Inclusion Program (PIE, for its name in Spanish), within the context of the Inclusion Law.
2018	Ministry Document	Foreign Students National Policy 2018–2022.
2019a	Ministry Document	How to move forward on inclusion from cultural diversity? (School climate handbook).
2019b	Ministry Document	Inclusive Educational Communities. Keys for Action (2019).
2019c	Ministry Document	Guidelines for the Implementation of Decree 67/2018 on school evaluation, qualification and promotion.
2019	Ministry Document	Technical Board for Special Educational Needs
2020	Ministry Document	Tools for a more inclusive education

Source: Author’s elaboration

In addition, to complement and strengthen the analyses, the last 10 annual Presidential discourses were added to the group of data. A total of 26 official documents were used.

4.3. Analysis technique

The texts were studied through the Pragmatic Discourse Analysis strategy, via interpretative repertoires as it has been developed by the Loughborough group of Discourse and Rhetoric (Biling, 2011; Potter & Wetherell, 1987). This type of analysis has the particularity of addressing texts as a form of social action. Just like Ibáñez and Iñiguez (1997) proposed, the task of analysis “is to bring forth the power of language as a constituent and regulating practice” (1996, p. 75), and that is why its orientation is fundamentally pragmatic and rhetorical. The analysis was specifically oriented towards the search of interpretative repertoires, where the central analysis unit is the discursive variability. These are consistent linguistic units that can be understood as central elements in order to build versions of the world. This analysis allows to understand how rhetoric strategies are displayed throughout texts, allowing the construction of certain versions of what is real, in this case certain versions of the professional ideal to appear as the best ones, undermining other alternative versions of the leadership role.

Through the segmentation of units of meaning a book of codes was created. The codes were later grouped in categories that form four interpretative repertoires: (1) leadership teams as supervisors of curricular coverage, (2) leadership teams as participation agents, (3) leadership teams as the ones in charge of documentation and (4) leadership teams as managers.

5. Results

Below is a synoptic table that summarizes the main interpretive repertoire (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The figure of the management team in inclusion policies in chile.

5.1. Leadership teams as supervisors of curricular coverage

This first repertoire is an analytical category that groups fragments that show how leadership teams are encouraged to supervise the compliance with objectives associated to the achievement of curricular goals. The analyzed documents do not encourage leaders to get involved in classrooms and processes of curricular flexibilization, but instead to create the conditions so that teachers can carry out this task and the development of pedagogical practices takes place. The fragments also show that leadership is made responsible for the educational results regarding the efficiency of the educational endeavor.

As mentioned in the technical Guidelines for the School Retention Plan (2019), which has inclusion as its basic principle, “the school principal and the technical-pedagogical team are constantly monitoring curricular coverage and learning results” (p. 20). This monitoring is carried out understanding the pedagogical as the curricular, this is, under the pressure of content coverage. This issue intensifies when the role of the principal also includes being the person responsible for the results of the school. The same document (2019) points to the principle “as responsible of the educational and formative results of the school” (p. 30), describing practices and procedures that aim to “ensure coverage and increase the effectiveness of the educational work” (p. 20).

In the Guidelines on Diversified Teaching Strategies for Elementary Education within the context of Decree 83/2015, it is possible to identify tasks that not only confirm the supervisory role of the leadership team, but also that leaders take on the task of creating conditions for teachers to implement the necessary actions, so students acquire curricular content. The following fragments correspond to the previously mentioned document:

The leadership role and the participation and effective implication of the principal and/or the leadership team, are necessary conditions to ensure the success of this process, and the implementation of any action that tends to promote (…) the changes required to move forward in acknowledging diversity in learning and more inclusive curricular processes (p. 39).

Leadership teams (…) need to consider that the subjects of Language and Communication and Mathematics are considered priority and they have a minimum weekly assignment (p. 35)

This repertoire creates the discursive effect of a leadership team that is protective of the curricular dimension, giving priority to coverage that is understood as an indicator of success of teaching and the effectiveness of the educational practice. In the same way, the leadership team is shaped as co-responsible of the actions taken by teachers to recognize curricular processes, giving priority to language and mathematics, however not in the technical sense but rather in the bureaucratic sense. In this context, it is possible to identify that the pedagogical dimension is also dangerously reduced to the curricular dimension. The discourse creates the figure of a leadership team that protects goals associated to performance and that even establishes “special support programs for those students that display a low academic performance that affects their learning process, as well as supporting plans for inclusion, with the goal of promoting a good school climate” (Law N°20.248/2015, p. 13).

5.2. Leadership teams as participation agents

This repertoire gathers multiple quotes that refer to a group of actions relevant to school leadership: management of collaborative work and participation. The consulted texts state that leaders must encourage teamwork, periodic meetings between the core groups in order to evaluate work plans and ensure the good work of the school through responsible and articulated decisions. This work would have the main goal of addressing the school curriculum and it would take place with the protagonism of adults, especially of those who have technical roles within the school.

[Decree 83 proposes] to leadership teams and teachers, to lead collaborative work processes for the development of a curricular management based on the Universal Design Principle with their teachers, multi-professional teams and the families, capable of diversifying the educational response, considering (specially in planning) a variety of proposals to address curriculum learning objectives from the beginning (Decree 83, p. 13).

Regardless of the type of school (…), it is important that the leadership team, teachers and other professionals of the school or microcenter, in the case of rural schools, have in-depth knowledge of the National Curriculum, its meanings, structure and spaces for flexibilization (Decree 83, p. 32).

Both aforementioned extracts illustrate a concern that is similar in the previous repertoire: the achievement of curricular goals. This means that the relationship between the curricular dimension and the inclusive aspect continues its course. In addition to this point, it is possible to find that collaborative work is fundamentally between school professionals, which moves families to second place and students to an even more peripheral level. The latter ones are merely informed of the technical decisions.

Articulation meeting per class, with the participation of head teachers, counselors and leadership team, in order to inform and make decisions about students in different types of risks, defining the specific pedagogical and psico-social support mechanisms and their corresponding work plans (Manual for School Retention, p. 27).

School desertion is something that must be avoided at all costs. From the analysis carried out by the teaching and technical team, in which students and involved tutors must also be consulted, the school principal and Chief of the Technical Pedagogical Unit (UTP, for its name in Spanish) will make the final decision (Decree 67, p. 48)

This repertoire creates the discursive effect of an image of a leadership team that must manage collaborative work that is highly technical, where priority is given to curricular coverage, neglecting other relevant dimensions of school inclusion (such as democracy, implication or pertinence) and through school participation where mainly adults take part, with a peripheral involvement of family and students, who are mostly just informed about school decisions.

This is going in the opposite direction of the school inclusion proposals, which state that an inclusive school is not only a school that intends learning to happen within diversity, which must also be integral, but that must also be democratic. This means to make the voice of students visible and promote a genuine collaborative decision-making process (Booth & Ainscow, 2015).

5.3. Leadership teams as the ones in charge of documentation

This repertoire is built through a group of fragments that refer to the importance of incorporating an inclusive signature in school technical and public documents, as a way of providing guarantee of an institution that is committed to inclusion. In the same way, the launching of inclusive practices implies to manage administrative documents that back these decisions. To lead a school with an inclusive approach includes creating protocols and instruments to enrich institutional actions regarding the care for diversity, the incorporation of actions to the educational improvement plan and managing other aspects, such as including an evaluation and promotion criteria. The following extracts are illustrative:

With the purpose of contextualizing and specifying the formative proposal outlined in the planning instruments of the school (PEI and PME), the leadership and technical teams, together with teachers and professionals (…) get to know the prescribed curricular basis and instruments in depth, in order to adjust them to the characteristics and idiosyncrasy of each school and the community context in which they are inserted and where they develop their educational action. (Decree 83, p. 38).

For this (the development of PME), professional responsibility and that of teachers and leadership teams is essential. This responsibility must also be in tune with the orientations described in the Framework for Good teaching and the Framework for good Management, establishing strategic objectives and goals for the next four years and its implementation in an annual program through goals and actions related to the declared aims and meanings of PE (school retention, p. 14).

This synthesis (conversations around regulation proposals) will be the main resource, so the leadership and technical pedagogical teams elaborate the first regulation proposal, gathering those proposals that are consolidated as a synthesis of the discussion and resolving disagreements with a pedagogical criterion (decree 67, p. 57)

The previous quotes shape leaders that manage curricular documents, where they create and systematize proposals and they make sure the definitions surrounding inclusion topics are coherent with the public documents of the school. The previous extracts build on the idea that the intentional use of documents enriches institutional decisions. The pertinence would be situated in the updated documents as an indispensable requirement for the decision-making. A representative point of this repertoire is what is mentioned by Law N°20.248 of school inclusion, which says that schools “must establish programs for those students that have a low performance (…) as well as plans for supporting inclusion” (p. 13). Within this repertoire a leadership team is built and is in charge of protocolizing school inclusion through documentation of the decisions that are made within the schools.

5.4. Leadership teams as managers

This fourth and last repertoire gathers a group of extracts that place leadership teams as agents in charge of managing administrative processes. Tasks include informing government institutions about the decision-making process in the curricular area, holding meetings with administrators/owners and external institutions, accounting for the work of the school, recording information and keeping control of expenses and use of resources.

It is a responsibility of the school principal to comply with the number of hours committed to the PIE program, informing the Provincial Department of Education regarding non-worked hours, and/or those appropriately recovered, according to current regulations for these cases (orientation for PIE, p. 15).

The annual evaluation is the opportunity through which the PIE team and the school management team review whether goals have been met, and strategies and actions addressed during the school year, in order to improve conditions of the school to attend to diversity and students with Special Educational Needs (NEE) (guidelines for PIE, p. 53).

The technical pedagogical team organizes the schedule for each class, assigning free-range hours according to formative and learning goals of the school and the needs and interests of the students, detected in the initial evaluation process (guidelines Decree 83, p. 36).

The previous extracts place the leadership team at the center of the management areas. Leaders take on the responsibility of a group of competences that are in line with the institutional administration. This repertoire establishes the idea that school inclusion by school leaders is the management of processes under the bureaucratization of their role, which pushes the management of evaluative, pedagogical, and participation processes to a second place. This creates the figure of a leadership team with administrative priorities. At the same time, the pedagogical dimension is reduced to teachers, especially to the special education team, taking off responsibility from the leadership team of the pedagogical and cultural functions that the educational policy promotes (Ministerio de Educación, 2015b).

6. Conclusions and discussion

The objective of this study was to analyze inclusion policies in regard to the demands assigned to leadership teams in the context of the New Public Management (NGP) in Chile. For this purpose, 26 representative texts were analyzed, to go in-depth into the pragmatic effects that documents have in leadership teams. The analyzed inclusion documents, which were paradoxically created in the context of the NGP, contain guidelines about how schools should address inclusion and prescribe very specific demands for leadership teams.

The results show, through four interpretative repertoires, that the documents build the figure of the leadership team as a custodian of the institutional goals referred to academic performance and as a supervisor of curricular coverage and compliance with school standards. In this context, the documents specifically show that leaders are responsible of the results related to the effectiveness of the educational labor. To achieve these (curricular) goals, the documents define leadership tasks associated to collaborative work management, where adults are the protagonists, especially those that hold technical roles, pushing families to a second place and students to a peripheral level, therefore becoming an adult-centered participation mode. In addition, the launching of the actions of the leadership team, both to monitor the achievement of goals and to manage collaborative work, include managing documents as a way of guaranteeing it is an institution that is committed to inclusion. This includes creating management protocols and instruments to enrich the measures taken by the schools. This shows, in the end, that the analyzed documents prescribe mainly instructional-administrative roles with low incidence in the school culture, contrary to what specialized literature suggests (Booth & Ainscow, 2015; UNESCO, 2020; Valdés, 2018) in order to respond to the inclusive proposals embraced by the Chilean system (Law N° 21,040, 2017).

The analyzed texts build the figure of a management team that protects academic performance. This implies that the documents show leaders as agents that supervise and monitor that the school complies with the educational standards linked to coverage of curricular content. This monitoring is not free of impositions. Texts, through a diversity of discursive display, make leaders responsible for the academic effectiveness of the school (Campos et al., 2019). Therefore, this implies that stylistic and grammatical constructions of documents build a way of understanding inclusion as a process that is mainly a curricular one. The priority is that all students learn and internalize curricular contents but, how? This is subject to imprecisions, since the variability and consistency patterns of the documents converge in the achievement of institutional objectives, giving priority to goals over processes.

The implied common declarations in the repertoires lie on the fact that documents instruct leadership teams to manage a complex process such as school inclusion by supervising the curricular aspect. This is not about understanding the curricular aspect as a particularly negative dimension, but it reduces inclusion to the institutional concern that everyone achieves learning results, where also language and mathematics are the priority, ignoring the other dimensions and challenges that literature on inclusion considers to be a priority such as democratic participation, school climate, inclusive culture or processes for embracing diversity (Calderón-Almendros et al., 2020; Ministerio de Educación, 2020a; UNESCO, 2020). The idea of an inclusive school based on academic performance is then established, and inclusion is at the service of teachers, grading and the curricular dimension (Sagrego et al., 2020), an aspect that settles into a paradigmatic tension (inclusion vs NGP), an issue that must be solved autonomously by the leadership teams.

The supremacy of academic performance in Chile has already been discussed. While Ramírez-Casas Del Valle et al. (2021) talk about the “managerializing” of the classroom, referring to the preeminence of a school performance grammar, Ramírez-Casas Del Valle and Valdés (2019) mentions that the grade is a device that organizes the whole school practice, even in schools with inclusive educational projects. This agrees with the studies of Sisto (2018, 2019, 2020) that show a consolidation of an educational policy that governs through evaluations and consequences, including the constant threat of school closing.

In this scenario, aspirations to achieve inclusive education are strongly counteracted by the NGP culture that has been promoted in Chile during the last decades (Campos et al., 2019; López et al., 2018; Sisto, 2019) and where precisely the achievement of curricular goals is an indicator of quality education. The tension at the basis is that inclusion must be thought in the light of a rights approach and not only in the light of a market logic. (Lerena & Trejos, 2105). The disagreement between the logics of inclusion and those coming from an NGP culture sets a complex school scenario to lead the way towards an inclusive school that understands equality as a fundamental right, a matter than in daily practice must be solved by school leaders, who are questioned, from an educational policy perspective, as the agents in charge of leading school transformation processes (De Educación, 2015; Ministerio de Educación, 2020a). In addition, the school principal in Chile is the only role evaluated through a performance agreement that assess specific goals. If these are not met, the principal can be fired or sanctioned (Montecinos et al., 2014).

Following the literature on school leadership (Daniëls et al., 2019; Flessa, 2019) it is possible to note that the analyzed public policy scenario results in the promotion of an ideal leadership that is focused on tasks and functions and the fluent upkeep of the educational organization (Bush, 2016). Although this style can be valued as successful in a managerial context (Campos et al., 2019), it must be noted that its emphasis in efficiency can be detrimental to the work with inclusive educational communities (Essomba, 2006; Ryan, 2016). On the contrary, documents do not emphasize the figure of an inclusive leader (Gómez-Hurtado et al., 2018), which would be the expected when discussing about inclusion, since it focuses in serving diversity, facing social injustice, distributing leadership through greater collaborative work and situating inter-personal relationships at the center of management (Valdés, 2020). In this scenario, it results highly complex to move forward towards an inclusive model as long as the documents do not promote an ideal of inclusive leadership, in the way that has been shown by international evidence (Flessa, 2019).

Finally, findings allow the projection of two research lines: (1) inquire on how leadership teams resolve the paradigmatic tension of inclusion and the NGP; (2) analyze inclusion policies regarding leadership styles that are promoted and how these converge with the NGP’s proposals.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Funding was received from ANID/FONDECYT 3200192.Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica