Obstacles to inclusion: questioning conceptions and practices about psychopedagogical evaluation

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to stimulate a debate extendable between counsellors in exercise (like between technicians of the administration, academics and researchers in this field), on psychopedagogical assessments and by extension, on the task of the educational counselling in the schools, in particular regarding students considered with special educational needs and in the light of the their right to an inclusive education. During the past few years, these tasks are tending to be linked more to the justification of segregation options (such as forcing the change in schooling), next to the criticized medical model of disability (Barton, 1998), than to the planning of inclusive proposals for all students, contradicting in many cases national and international legislation (Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, UN, 2006). For this reason, return the debate in the field from bureaucracy to the ethics can help us to rethink the educative perspective that must prevail in these tasks. Because we cannot download the fight for equity in the schools on the shoulders of the most vulnerable students and their families¡ For this purpose, and besides the target of critize the current impasse and weakness of the process toward more inclusive systems, cultures and practices, we pointed out some criticisms and outline a number of alternative proposals for the psychopedagogical assessment (Calderon and Habegger 2012), which could contribute to correct current drift and strengthen the resistance processes against the exclusionary forces operating in the educative system.