Inequalities and educational inclusion: Topographies of experiences of teachers and students in two urban secondary schools (Córdoba, 2016-2017)

Abstract

In the present article, we propose an analysis of educational inclusion”¿ in two secondary schools in Cordoba city, and a presentation of the social experiences that teachers and students produce in such a context. For this goal, we offer a critical approach of “educational inclusion”, and the way it materializes in two institutions of a city such as Cordoba, as organized by urban and social inequality. Inclusion will be, then, a gate towards analyzing the conditions in which experiences are produced in a public and private secondary school. Asking ourselves about experiences of inequality implies a very special form of inequality: one that does not refer to access, promotion or knowledge, but an inequality related to the material, symbolic and sensitive conditions in which actors live their space/time and tie then to their overall experience. The analysis involves a methodological approach that links structural dimensions of the educational field, with located sensitive, semantic and practical aspects. This qualitative investigation builds bonds for interpretation and understanding of the complexity of social phenomenon. We conclude that there is the existence of very different experiences, organized, among other elements, by strongly unequal responsibilities in ensuring educational inclusion. There is also the existence of a special relation of distance/closeness among school actors, and the construction of schools as different “environments for experience”: a safe environment and a conflictive one. We also reflect on the topographies that emerge within the institutions, and their continuity with urban and social order.