Teacher Education Research in Europe: The Crucial Role of Mediated Education. Qualitative and Comparative Analysis Between Italian and Bulgarian Inclusive School System
Abstract:
School systems in the European territory, while sharing guidelines and based on ideological, practical, and methodological beliefs found in the main European documents on inclusion, maintain traits and procedures in line with the singularities of territories both from a cultural and welfare systems point of view. Trying to compare historically, culturally, and politically different territories is not only complex but, in some ways, it might be fruitless. This paper does not aim to create a ranking of the most inclusive country but wants to share reflections and similarities between good inclusive practices in Italy and Bulgaria. The analysis, qualitative and quantitative, is the result of an extrapolation of data on the two countries, collected within the Erasmus Plus ASuMIE (Additional Support and Mediated Learning in Inclusive Education) project through a questionnaire. In this specific analysis, 100 questionnaires per country were collected and analyzed. ASuMIE is part of a larger European Union project aimed at keeping the focus on inclusive education in and out of school that involved 7 partner countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, and Portugal. The data and reflections in this paper will be linked to a comparison only between Italy and Bulgaria for the homogeneity of the data and the significance of the reflections that emerged in comparing the responses of the two countries. The questionnaire interrogates the key-players in inclusive processes (schools, principals, families, practitioners, and rehabilitation therapists) about what really works in Inclusive Education (approaches and methodologies) and, at the same time, tries to trace emerging needs, and areas on which there is still room for improvement, and which turns out to be an emergency to work on. The intentions behind these analyses and reflections are the Well-being and Quality of Life of SEN students, their families, teachers, and therapists. Inclusion is never an individual project; inclusion is always a team commitment, no one excluded.
