Inclusive education and its challenges:a conversation with David Rodrigues

Abstract

Inclusive education in the context of special education has been constantly debated by researchers from all over the world. In 2015, the 8th Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress: equity and inclusion in education was held at Universidade de Lisboa, bringing together delegates from 38 countries, including teachers, researchers, political leaders, and representatives of institutions. Professor David Rodrigues was one of the general coordinators of the congress, in recognition for his extensive contribution to the field of special education, and specifically to inclusive education. This was the context of the interview, which was organized taking into account the experience of Professor Rodrigues as a student, professor and activist deeply involved with the guarantee of the right to education for all. Its biographic content reveals the character that inclusive education takes in his life. Rather than an object of study – which should be scrutinized from outside, without engagement –, it is a cause: education as a universal right, performed living together, recognizing and constituting itself based on human differences. Thus Professor Rodrigues discusses the need for rethinking educational work to include all students and the importance of teacher education in this context. He analyzes concepts such as inclusion and equity in the light of the Declaration of Incheon, a document organized by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Oragnization (UNESCO) in 2015, during the World Education Forum in South Korea.