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The rights of Serge Ebersold to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020946951
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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78945-011-8
ERC codes:
SH3 The Social World, Diversity, Population
SH3_3 Social integration, exclusion, prosocial behaviour
SH3_7 Social policies, welfare
SH3_11 Social aspects of learning, curriculum studies, educational policies
Introduction
Serge EBERSOLD
Lise, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM), Paris, France
Accessibility is undoubtedly a unifying concept that makes it possible to understand the aggiornamento of the school system that accompanies the advent of a societal model that makes the uncertain individual a principle of social organization (Ehrenberg 1995) and knowledge the foundation of its economic and social development (Boltanski and Chiapello 2000). The accessibility of school environments is a social concept that has loomed over educational policies and, more generally, public policies for several decades now; specifically, the promotion of inclusive schools focusing on the well-being and success of every learner and ensuring, to this end, that they are receptive to the diversity of learners’ educational profiles, is at the heart of the democratization of European education systems and goes far beyond the issue of disability (Nesse 2012; Zay 2012).
This ideal is part of a reinvention of the school. It invites us to see diversity as a resource beneficial to the smooth running of schools (and, more generally, to the economic and social well-being of societies). It underpins learners’ academic and social commitment to the transformation of school systems or the way they function and, more particularly, to the forms of codification governing the pedagogical relationship between teachers, students and knowledge. It postulates the cognitive autonomy of every learner and, as such, rejects any indifference to difference: it places the causes of difficulties at school, and more generally social difficulties, in the shortcomings of school systems before inferring them from the characteristics of individuals, and reverses the normative frames of reference underlying school functioning. It places the control of educational and social inequalities linked to organizational effects at the heart of the legitimacy of school systems and makes them accountable for their ability to prevent and combat discrimination.
I.1. The school, a vector of social protection because of its accessibility
The first part of this book links the reinvention of the school to the shifts (economic, political, educational and social) that have contributed to establishing accessibility as an imperative. Such a mobilization is consistent with the redefinition of the economy of obligations uniting society and its members around a contextualized application of rights. As shown in Chapter 1, this new economy of obligations relates educational and social inequalities to the inaccessibility of organizations before likening them to the social consequences of a disease, disability or disorder. It makes accessibility a form of social protection centered on the exercise of individual rights and the possibilities given to individuals to assume the responsibilities that go with them. Accessibility is intended to give concrete expression to a “real” equality likely to prevent any form of exclusion by giving people the resources (cognitive, social, educational, etc.) required to protect themselves against the vicissitudes of life, such as unemployment, illness or poverty, through their involvement in economic and social well-being (Génard 1999). The equity ambition of inclusive schooling is, as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states, to enable every student to achieve a minimum skills base and level of knowledge (OECD 2012). It is with the personalization of educational practices that it will be possible to build an optimal learning environment capable of supporting and developing the potential of every pupil through the construction of an appropriate school environment.
This redefinition of the economy of obligations is consubstantial with a socio-anthropological capability-based horizon correlating school performance with learning contexts (Crahay and Dutrévis 2010; Dehaene 2018). As Plaisance shows in Chapter 7 of this book, this capability-based horizon challenges the traditional deficit approach based on levels of educability; in contrast to the distinction between the educable, semi-educable and non-educable, it substitutes the typical learner for the atypical one, who needs pedagogical and social support in order to have the resources required for his or her academic commitment and success. This shift in perspective has contributed to the dissolving of deficiency and ineducability. As Evans (Chapter 2) shows, it contrasts the health needs resulting from impairment or illness with the complexity of the educational needs that can be met by differentiating pedagogical practices, making adjustments or mobilizing appropriate support. As a result, the idea that any learner could be enrolled in school, including those who had hitherto been educated in specialized environments, was accepted, provided that the school environment was adapted. This has led most OECD countries to give priority to mainstream schooling over special schooling (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education 2018). This shift in perspective has also led to the “universalization” of the need to make school and social environments accessible to all learners at risk of failure at school. It has turned the social background of pupils, the existence of learning difficulties, high potential, or an impairment or insufficient mastery of the language of the country of residence into potential sources of educational need that require the mobilization of resources specifically dedicated to taking them into account and, correlatively, to the accessibilization of educational environments (OECD 2007). Students with special educational needs (SEN), far from being limited to those with health problems, include, in most OECD countries, all those who need support to succeed at school because of their physical, behavioral, intellectual, emotional and/or social characteristics (UNESCO 1997).
This redefinition of the economy of obligations reorganizes the social contract around the social responsibility assumed by schools and their commitment to controlling educational and social inequalities linked to organizational effects (Ebersold 2010). This empowerment of schools takes the form of a universal approach to accessibility when the modes of accessibilization are organized around a pedagogy of invention that mobilizes varied teaching strategies and adapts the support or production processes to the rhythms and cognitive levels of learners without modifying the level of difficulty of the tasks to be carried out or the criteria for evaluating the target skills. This universal approach to accessibility is based on diagnostic assessments providing teachers with the pedagogical reference points necessary to take into account the diversity of profiles when organizing learning, that is, the choice of progression, the internal organization of the class, and the documents and exercises proposed. It is also supported by a range of training courses encouraging teachers to focus on the barriers to learning or co-teaching practices that, as Mainardi shows (Chapter 4), invite teachers to mobilize strategies to help struggling students throughout the school population. This