Barriers to Educational Inclusion in Initial Teacher Training

Abstract

Initial teacher training within the framework of an inclusive school constitutes a fundamental challenge in order to meet the needs of 21st century society. The 2030 agenda establishes in the target of goal four the need for well-qualified teachers, capable of developing inclusive educational responses to the diversity of the needs of the students enrolled in their centres. The objective of this article is to analyse the perception of the school community regarding the initial training of future teachers in providing an inclusive and quality educational response for all students. The design was qualitative, non-experimental and descriptive. The participants were 78 people involved in teacher training and the educational exclusion–inclusion processes in the region of Murcia (Spain). The information collection techniques were 39 semi-structured interviews and 10 focus groups. The analysis of the information was carried out through an inductive categorization process, classifying the information into different analysis codes with the Atlas.Ti program (V. 8). The results of the work indicate that with regard to inclusive education, there is a clear shortfall in the initial training of teachers, a limitation in the acquisition of competences regarding attention to diversity, the presence of theoretical learning which has limited relevance to practical intervention, and a training approach anchored in models from the past which refers to student deficiencies. This work has the value of providing an insight into the barriers present in initial training from the perspective of all the educational actors involved in the educational system, which has not been sufficiently investigated in this field of study.