Experiences of in-/exclusion in the school curriculum: What will we do with them?

Abstract

The article analyzes narratives of teachers of the initial classes of elementary education, showing how this group sees experiences of in-/exclusion in school. For this purpose I use concepts of inclusion and difference in tune with post-structuralist authors. When analysing the selected material — questionnaires answered by teachers —, I identify some meanings ascribed to experiences of in-/exclusion in this school, such as the recurrent complaint that teachers had not been properly prepared for inclusion, that experts were displaced from their roles and that it was diffi cult to identify situations of inclusion. I show how the concepts of inclusion and difference in the school take on different and complex contours, producing both inclusion and exclusion and the obliteration of differences. In the fi nal part I discuss different situations considered as situations of inclusion in this school, analyzing the answer that keeps astonishing us when we speak of those we regard as undesirable: What will we do with them?

Key words: in-/exclusion, difference, school curriculum.