Conference Program

The Italian school system was a pioneer in the deinstitutionalization of education, being the first to welcome all students into the regular education system and establishing inclusive education as its current guiding principle. However, the practical implementation of this principle remains fraught with challenges. Within the Italian academic landscape, research informed by the Disability Studies perspective has exposed systemic flaws in the inclusive process, which often culminate in practices of exclusion and discrimination. Specifically, since the early 2000s, processes of micro-exclusion have been brought to light.

In line with this theoretical framework, an observational study was conducted across two primary schools in the Tuscany region to identify contemporary phenomena of micro-exclusion within school contexts. The findings revealed that such practices persist across seven key domains: language, physical spaces, temporal organization, interpersonal relationships, instructional design, educational provision, and assessment.

This contribution aims to analyze these phenomena through the lens of Critical Disability Studies to understand which elements, typical of ableism, drive their manifestation.

From the analysis of the observed phenomena, it emerges that the school system remains deeply rooted in an ableist paradigm. Firstly, there is a noticeable “pollution” of language, resulting from both implicit and explicit categorization processes that reflect a marked prevalence of the individual-medical model. Secondly, the constant reference to the norm triggers separation at multiple levels. Processes of instructional design and assessment, alongside the organization of educational provision, all based on the concept of homogeneity and the ideal of the “average student”, render those who do not fit this canon victims of normalization, adaptation, compensation, and simplification, at best. At worst, these students face exclusion from learning and socialization, leading to the creation of parallel tracks delegated solely to the support teacher. Furthermore, this phenomenon of delegation is reflected in the interpersonal dynamics within the class group. Finally, the normative organization of space induces push-out phenomena toward environments constructed for specific categories of students based on their impairment, thereby shifting the focus back onto the individual rather than the context.

The school has struggled to embrace the challenge of being transformed by diversity, which continues to be interpreted as a deviation from a norm, a condition to be reduced to facilitate assimilation. The necessary shift toward inclusive education, understood as a radical transformation of the system, has yet to be fully realized. It is, therefore, essential to reclaim an authentically inclusive perspective: one that shifts the focus away from the “non-normative” student to examine the disabling context and deconstruct the dominant ableist ideologies from which exclusionary and discriminatory practices derive.