Inclusive Education: Rethinking its Theoretical Foundations

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to deeper analyze the concept of difference, in what relates to otherness, that lays behind the educational discourse, and its consequences for teaching and learning about our relationship with others. According to this discourse, diversity must be recognized, or even celebrated (Michaels, 2006), to create a truly common. All the differences must have a place at school, and teachers are required to find them, to identify them, to analyze them and finally to work on them (Ferguson, 2008).

Education has been traditionally related to knowledge: in Education, knowledge goes always first. Knowledge is always reassuring for human beings, as it allows us to deal with the unknown, which scares us. This is the reason why we tend to define, explain, decode what comes from outside, in order to erase its enigma. However, to define the other is to lock them into a determined identity or, even worse, to prevent them from any authentic expression beyond that given identity. We will try to show up to what extent the focus on differences is not a different response to otherness than the traditional attempt to possess it, but just another expression of the fear that the other arouses. That was the reason for Levinas to put the otherness at first. The encounter with the other must be free of knowledge, it must be sincere and pure. Everyone is unique, but it is not the teacher or the science that must define it, but the simple encounter. Per Lévinas (2011, 157) my own self is created by the I 's reception of the Other, a self which from the very beginning is a moral self. The appearance of the naked face of the Other show me the first of human principles, namely, you shall not kill . Because when knowledge goes first; when we define someone just attending to one of her intrinsic characteristics, we are killing her authentic and unique personality and that is clearly immoral. Addressing topics as gender, sexual orientation, or race, it seems quite clear. However, when we are referring people with any kind of disability, it does not. We will try to show that inclusive education it is not just about social justice, but fundamentally about moral education.

The aim of this paper is to deeper analyze the concept of difference, in what relates to otherness, that lays behind the educational discourse, and its consequences for teaching and learning about our relationship with others. According to this discourse, diversity must be recognized, or even celebrated (Michaels, 2006), to create a truly common. All the differences must have a place at school, and teachers are required to find them, to identify them, to analyze them and finally to work on them (Ferguson, 2008).

Education has been traditionally related to knowledge: in Education, knowledge goes always first. Knowledge is always reassuring for human beings, as it allows us to deal with the unknown, which scares us. This is the reason why we tend to define, explain, decode what comes from outside, in order to erase its enigma. However, to define the other is to lock them into a determined identity or, even worse, to prevent them from any authentic expression beyond that given identity. We will try to show up to what extent the focus on differences is not a different response to otherness than the traditional attempt to possess it, but just another expression of the fear that the other arouses. That was the reason for Levinas to put the otherness at first. The encounter with the other must be free of knowledge, it must be sincere and pure. Everyone is unique, but it is not the teacher or the science that must define it, but the simple encounter. Per Lévinas (2011, 157) my own self is created by the I 's reception of the Other, a self which from the very beginning is a moral self. The appearance of the naked face of the Other show me the first of human principles, namely, you shall not kill . Because when knowledge goes first; when we define someone just attending to one of her intrinsic characteristics, we are killing her authentic and unique personality and that is clearly immoral. Addressing topics as gender, sexual orientation, or race, it seems quite clear. However, when we are referring people with any kind of disability, it does not. We will try to show that inclusive education it is not just about social justice, but fundamentally about moral education.