Prácticas docentes para atender la diversidad en una escuela de la ciudad de Cuenca

Abstract

The need for education for all people has been discussed in various conferences, such as the World Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990, and the World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality, held in Salamanca, Spain, in 1994, where the Salamanca Statement on Principles, Policy and Practice in Special Needs Education was adopted. In the latter, it was stated that schools should welcome all children, regardless of their social, economic, physical, or cultural backgrounds. In this regard, teachers are considered to be the leading actors in school, as they are responsible for working directly with students. Therefore, their practices are taken into account when verifying if inclusive education is being addressed in the classroom. From this perspective, this research was conducted in a fiscomisional school located in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador and it aims at describing the practices that teachers believe they use to address diversity. A qualitative, cross-sectional methodology was used, applying a semi-structured interview and a question guide as the instrument to gather information from the participants to meet the research objective. The interview was conducted with a sample of six elementary education teachers. The results reveal that teachers apply inclusive practices in their classrooms; however, they lack sufficient training in the subject, which leads to a duality of attitudes in their professional performance.