Educación inclusiva y formación inicial docente. Una experiencia en la región de Coquimbo, Chile

Resumen

The following thesis is framed in the context of education for everybody, or inclusive education, which is currently known as one of the main concerns in the world, Latin America, and Chile. In Chile there are institutions that have committed to train teachers for an inclusive education, there are norms and policies that regulate it, however there have not been studies in the Coquimbo Region to uncover how they are being carried out in the educational practice. It emerges then the interest of, through this research, deepen our knowledge about the conditions that are favoring or hindering the implementation of an inclusive education, particularly in the experiences developed by special education teachers who studied at the Universidad Central de Chile campus La Serena and work in the Coquimbo Region, in either basic and/or secondary educational institutions. The main goal of this work is to analyze the opportunities and obstacles to implement an inclusive education in the Coquimbo Region, Chile, in the teaching exercise of special education professionals who studied at the Universidad Central de Chile, particularly those from the La Serena campus. This study integrates a theoretical foundation, emphasizing the contribution of national and international authors to the context of this research, and a political and sociocultural foundation, referred to the context and comprehension of the current challenges that education is facing in the country and in particular in the Region of Coquimbo. This work also contains a legal and normative foundation, where important national and international factors that have supported an inclusive education are reviewed. Other works and previous experiences related to this thesis topic are reviewed as well. We consider all regular education institutions that have or do not have Scholar Integration Programs, special schools, with private, public and mixed (subsidized) dependences in the Region de Coquimbo, where professionals who studied at the Universidad Central de Chile campus La Serena have worked or are currently working. From these, we selected as research subjects, professionals taught under the inclusive approach from the 2010 to 2015 classes, including managers and teachers from schools, regional ministerial authorities of education and the Corporation and Department of Municipal Education of the townships of La Serena and Coquimbo. This research uses a qualitative methodology, from a phenomenological point of view. In order to do this, different data collection instruments were used: interviews, focal groups, documentary analysis and observation records by means of in-field journals. Prior to its design, the instruments were validated through the judgment of thematic and methodological experts. The data analysis was carried out following different stages of preparation, codification and categorization, in order to obtain valid, useful and deep interpretations. The triangulation was approached from a theoretical point of view of both, subjects and instruments. The results have supplied considerable information regarding the relation with opportunities and obstacles that are encouraging or hindering the development of an inclusive education in the educational contexts. Some of them are the recognition of the education that the Universidad Central is giving to its differential educators along the inclusive educational context, the tools in diversity awareness and the use of different strategies and collaborative work, among others, but also the clear need to strengthen leadership skills and strategies to assume a duty in secondary level education. Regarding the education contexts the conditions that encourage an inclusive work are identified, for example the will of the teachers and managers; on the other hand, contexts that need to be improved are, among others, the inclusive culture in schools and the comprehension of the inclusive work in which differential educators can contribute, which goes further than just a work focused on students with special educational needs. Finally, we present proposals in which the training institution, Universidad Central, can contribute to improve the educational process in inclusive education and in orientation for the hiring institutions, sharing the main conclusions of this study, so they can be considered by their educational centers in order to benefit the whole community