http://dx.doi.org/10.5902/1984686X52845

Inclusive practices, polycentred approach and accessibility

Pratiques inclusives, approche polycentrée et accessibilité

Práticas inclusivas, abordagem policêntrica e acessibilidade

Serge Ebersold

Professeur au Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, France.

serge.ebersold@lecnam.net

ORCID – http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2258-5535

Recebido em 11 de agosto 2020

Aprovado em 4 de setembro de 2020

Publicado em 17 de novembro de 2020

ABSTRACT

This text reports the realization of the imperative of accessibility to the symbolic, cognitive and practical framework developed by stakeholders to build interdependent links conducive to cooperation between stakeholders and, correlatively, to consistency and the cohesion of school and post-school trajectories. The receptivity of education systems is infered to diversity from the meaning given by individuals and the structures employing them them to the joint undertaking being carried out and the strategies deployed to develop equitable systems of cooperation. It focuses on the reference system available to stakeholders to qualify the validity of their cooperation and the "common" basis of their mutual and reciprocal obligations. He first describes the outlines of common action induced by the presuppositions of an egocentric approach requiring to put the person at the center of public action. It apprehends secondly those encouraged by a polycentric approach inviting to put the becoming of the person at the center. Thirdly, it describes the ways in which people with special educational needs can become involved in such an approach and the forms of cooperation it supports.

Keywords: Accessibility; cooperation; inclusive practices.

RÉSUMÉ

Ce texte rapporte la concrétisation de l’impératif d’accessibilité à l’organisation, symbolique, cognitive et pratique développée par les parties prenantes pour construire des liens d’interdépendance propice à la coopération entre les acteurs et, corrélativement, à la cohérence et à la cohésion des trajectoires scolaires et post-scolaires. La réceptivité des systèmes éducatifs à la diversité est inférée au sens donné par les individus et les structures qui les emploient à l’entreprise conjointement menée ainsi qu’aux stratégies déployées pour développer des systèmes équitables de coopération. Il s’intéresse aux repères d’interprétation et d’action dont disposent les acteurs pour juger du bien-fondé de leur coopération et du « commun » fondant leur obligation réciproque. Il décrit dans un premier temps les contours de l’agir commun induits par les présupposés d’une approche égocentrée invitant à mettre la personne au centre de l’action publique. Il appréhende en second lieu ceux encouragés par une approche polycentrée invitant à mettre le devenir de la personne au centre. Il décrit en troisième lieu les ressorts d’engagement des personnes à besoins éducatifs particuliers qu’une telle perspective autorise ainsi que les ressorts de coopération qu’elle soutient.

Mots clés: Accessibilité; coopération; pratiques inclusives.

RESUMO

Este texto relata a constatação do imperativo de acessibilidade à organização simbólica, cognitiva e prática, desenvolvida por profissionais para construir vínculos interdependentes conducentes à cooperação entre os atores e, correlativamente, à consistência e à coesão das trajetórias escolares e pós-escolares. A receptividade dos sistemas educacionais à diversidade é interferido no sentido dado pelos indivíduos e pelas estruturas que os empregam, bem como as estratégias implantadas para desenvolver sistemas equitativos de cooperação. Ainda, interessa-se nas referências de interpretação e ação disponíveis aos atores para julgar os méritos de sua cooperação e a base "comum" de sua obrigação recíproca. Primeiramente, descreve-se os contornos da ação comum induzida pelos pressupostos de uma abordagem egocêntrica que convida a colocar a pessoa no centro da ação pública. Apreende, em segundo lugar, aqueles estimulados por uma abordagem policêntrica, que convida a colocar o futuro da pessoa no centro. Em terceiro lugar, descreve as fontes de engajamento das pessoas com necessidades educacionais especiais que essa perspectiva permite, bem como as fontes de cooperação que ela apoia.

Palavras-chave: Accessibilidade; cooperação; práticas inclusivas.

Introduction

The accessibility imperative frames the schooling of students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) within open systems aimed at the fulfilment of individual rights and at providing them with the necessary resources for their commitment in the community and for the realisation of their own self thanks to the elaboration of specific solutions in particular situations (MORIN, 1977).

This openness requirement implies that the educational systems have to do far more than producing protective attitudes towards students who have health problem or who are vulnerable by proposing special education and by placing them at the centre of their concern so as to better meet their needs, rhythms and expectations and to offer them the conditions for their best possible development and this independently from their personal characteristics (EUROPEAN AGENCY FOR SPECIAL NEEDS AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION, 2015; CONCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, 2015).

It demands schools to be open to their environment in order to facilitate transitions between education levels as well as between education and labour market. It supposes, moreover, to be open to other categories of stakeholders; indeed, as they aim to be global, adapted to the student’s  needs and rhythms, the individualisation and contextualisation of the practices are linked to collaborative undertakings mobilizing families, members of the pedagogic team, professionals specialised in managing school diversity and even professionals of the social, medico-social and health sector (UNESCO, 2017).

This requirement to openess gives a polysystemic feature to the schooling of students with SEN. It underpins the personalisation and the contextualisation of practices to the space of relationships that has been established for developing collectively the sense of the action and to synergies issues specific to individuals, to the organisation they are involved in and to the action commonly defined by the stakeholders so as to ensure the individuals’ social participation (CORDONNIER, 1997; LEMIEUX, 1999).

The elaboration of this space of relationships presides over the meaning given by the individuals and the structures that employ them to the joint enterprise being run. It conditions the adjustments on the basis of which the various categories of stakeholders involved in the process forge successful educational pathways, ensure the smooth flow of paths and build bridges between the different institutions involved.

The elaboration of such space for relationships does also specify the nature of the collective support brought about by accessibility: a weak level of interdependence between the stakeholders hinders the coherence and cohesion of the links between them and overexposes the students and their families to a lack of continuity due to institutional barriers (DEE, 2006); on the reverse, a high level of interdependence  promotes the students’ social and professional inclusion by facilitating the coherence of school and post-school trajectories (EBERSOLD, 2005; 2017).

Moreover, the way this space of relationships is developed governs the forms of commitment allowed to individuals: when it is rooted in an essentialist approach to learning or social difficulties, it tends to perpetuate a meritocratic approach to accessibility, making the capacity for self-legitimisation and self-representation a normative reference point that distinguishes pupils worthy of support from those who are less so; on the other hand, when it is structured around an ecological approach to social and learning difficulties that looks at the enabling or invalidating effect of practice, it encourages to think about the conditions that support people's involvement in the processes.

As defined, the requirement of openness underpins the implementation of the accessibility imperative to the common, e.g. to the system of rights and reciprocal obligations presiding over collective action commonly defined by stakeholders and geared towards taking into account the differences and interests of each (DARDOT; LAVAL, 2014). This common stems from the forms of cooperation developed to anchor the stakeholders’ action in interdependent links that are sources of synergy and commitment. The requirement of openness encourages correlatively to put at distance any predefined understanding of good or bad accessibility to the benefit of the symbolic and practical framework collectively defined by the players involved to make environment, i.e. to bring together the necessary conditions for the accessibility of school and social environments.

Indeed, although crucial for ensuring the coherence and cohesion of educational and social pathways, the conditions necessary for the establishment of a space of relations that is a source of synergy between the players are not given. There is nothing to oblige stakeholders who belong to sometimes competing institutions, whose voices have a different social value because of their status and whose professional identities may historically have been built in opposition to each other, to work together, to transmit information, to participate in meetings, or even to recognise themselves as legitim (MUEL-DREYFUS, 1983).

Moreover, the project rationale does not link the division of tasks and the distribution of roles to the organisational contexts of a school, medical-social institution, university, professionals, etc.; it refused to link the  professional legitimacy of stakeholders to statutory considerations to the benefit of the requirements linked to the jointly defined common action and the forms of mutual recognition established when defining the objectives modalities of action (HABERMAS, 1987).

This text likens therefore the environment to a social construct whose contours and characteristics that will determine individual trajectories and not as a ready-made datum. It draws notably on pragmatic sociology to relate the implementation of the accessibility imperative to the symbolic, cognitive and practical framework developed by stakeholders to build interdependent links conducive to the coherence and cohesion of school and post-school trajectories when defining the schooling or the support plan or the support plan or during the meetings planned during the schooling plan.

It recognises that cooperation opportunities between stakeholders lie in the meaning given by individuals and the structures employing them, to the jointly conducted action as well as to the strategies developed to give the interactions an organisational character strong enough to ensure that activities and tasks are making up a system. In doing so, it relates the cooperation possibilities to the points of reference for interpretation and action available to the stakeholders for valuing the well-founded strategy, qualifying the common on which their mutual obligation is based, to overcome conflicts of interpretation (THÉVENOT, 2006).

This text describes first the contours of common action and the forms of interdependence encouraged by the presupposition of an egocentred approach inviting to put the person at the centre of public action. It considers secondly the conception of common action promoted by a polycentred approach inviting to place the person’s becoming at the centre of public action. Thirdly, it analyses the conditions of involvement of people in SEN that such a perspective allows and the forms of cooperation it supports.

A receptivity to diversity that conflicts with the presuppositions of an ego-centred approach

The polysystemic nature of open systems leads to keep at distance the social engineering promoted by an egocentred approach to the social world, which places the individual at the centre of the practices and concerns of those involved aims as it is the case with many reforms of the education system, the person at the centre of the practices and of the actors’ concerns (ELIAS,1991).

The analysis of the factors governing interinstitutional and interindividual cooperation suggests that an egocentred approach prevents the interested persons and their families from being seen as active participants in the process (EBERSOLD, 2003a; 2008). It approaches the accessibilisation of school environments in terms of the responses provided to identified needs; taking the individual’s autonomy as the normative ideal, the egocentred approach perpetuates an essentialist approach to autonomy which values the internal explanations of individuals to the detriment of factors referring to the enabling effect of school practices and support strategies. (EBERSOLD; DUPONT, 2019).

It thus obliges to consider the students only according to their difficulties or their needs for help, to the detriment of their qualities that would enable to consider them as otherwise capable students nonetheless able to comply with the requirements of the student’s duty and to assume the responsibilities that are linked to it (PLAISANCE, 2009).

By persisting in relating the common which frames stakeholders’ collective action to the students’ difficulties, this approach requires from the professionals to take into account the particularities of these persons while persisting in making them the stake around which their professional legitimacy is defined. It enjoins schools’ stakeholders to make the student simultaneously the main object of the process as a result of his/her difficulties and inabilities and one of its key players. Professionals are thus reduced to consider the status establishing the student’s disability as the main source of certainty around which their roles and functions are organised. This urges them to organise their missions, roles and functions according to the social problem that defines the students instead of referring them to their own contribution to the schooling process, to the skills they mobilise, and to their involvement in a common dynamic (EBERSOLD, 2003b; 2008).

Figure 1 – An egocentred approach that supports paradoxical injunctions

Source: Own drafting (2020).

The egocentred approach tends also to minimise school systems’ ability to focus on their receptiveness to the diversity of educational profiles. By inviting to place the person at the centre, it substantiates the idea, as shown in the analysis of the representations of students and inclusive practices  in the official tool for assessing the needs of children with SEN, that this person is the only one to have needs that should be met, even though the need for pedagogical adaptations demands quite often the development of training courses, information and support of the part of school players; when such needs are not taken into account they become a source of discomfort or even malaise and, as a result, of resistance (Ebersold; Mayol, 2016).

This is evidenced, for instance, by the tendency to associate the Individual Educational Plan (IEP) as a management tool aimed at including observations and anecdotes from each player about the student to the detriment of the activities carried out, tasks achieved, know-hows, behaviour and knowledges mobilised for informing on the educational relationship in its complexity.

As shown by the research on the future of upper secondary students¹, the egocentred approach resumes consequently the educational relationship to a service delivered to students to the detriment of the pedagogical and didactical dimensions implied by the impairment or by the learning disorder. It reduces the educational need to a need for service and the development of an IEP to a normative tool used to define the students according to their degree of educability as suggested notably by those statistical data that see the IEP as the expression of the severity of the impairment (EBERSOLD, 2012; 2017).

Moreover, the egocentred approach makes it particularly delicate to establish spaces for relationships based on reciprocity of bonds among stakeholders and parity of participation as it is foreseen by the studies on mainstream education of learners with SEN as well as by the administrative texts. It persists in making the student the stake around which the professional legitimacy of all those who are supposed to contribute to the plan is built to the detriment of the various dimensions governing cooperation.

Cooperating becomes consequently an obligation, mainly ruled by official texts and organisational contexts. By persisting in basing the legitimacy of professionals in people's disabilities or need for help, this approach structures the modalities of cooperation around the definition given to the legitimate vision of the social problem with the risk to lead institutions and professionals to fight to hold the power to define the legitimate vision of the problem to be solved (ASENCIO, 2006). It contributes, in addition, to frame relationships between stakeholders within an organisational rationale ruled by statutary competitions among stakeholders that gives rise to various forms of resistance instead of being motivated by a common aim and concern (KADDOURI, 1997).

The division of tasks and the distribution of roles depends on the institutional positions occupied by stakeholders instead of being organised according to the skills to be mobilised. The relationships between stakeholders take the form of collaboration defined in relation to predefined objectives and a division of tasks and a distribution of roles that are already organisationally and institutionally consecrated (Chauvière; Fablet, 2001; Chauvière; plaisance, 2008; EBERSOLD, 2003a).

Each structure involved has very often its own legitimation tool (assessment tools, files, etc.) aimed at relating the framework of interpretation of students’ difficulties to its own disciplinary and/or institutional field (administration, medical sector, psychological, educational, socio-educational fields and others) and at leading each category of stakeholder, with their own professional culture, to apprehend the social problem motivating the support in the light of its specific angle. The articulation of professional cultures becomes delicate, even impossible, at the risk of making relationships unbalanced and structured around modes of regulation more or less voluntarily accepted by the parties involved (EBERSOLD, 2002).

A receptivity to diversity depending on a polycentred approach framing the common action within a capacity matrix

The polysystemic nature of open systems infers the common ground around which the accessibilisation of the contexts and of school environments is implemented, to the development of a polycentred approach that places the person’s becoming at the centre of public action. Placing the person’s becoming at the centre distances itself from a defectological perspective that essentialise persons’ difficulties.

This perspective views the person as a human being in the process of becoming, ontologically capable of evolving and progressing in the same way as anyone else, provided that the necessary means (pedagogical, technical, human and financial) are adequately mobilised. By placing the persons’ becoming at the centre of its concerns, it makes the ipséity² of the self (RICOEUR, 1990), that is to say the person’s capacity to think of him/herself as another  in the temporal dimension of human existence, the principle governing the common good uniting the players involved and the common action taken to implement his/her rights.

This polycentred approach thus consecrates a capacity matrix shifting away from the binary opposition distinguishing the capable person from the one who is not, to the benefit of an approach considering the person as an otherwise capable person (PLAISANCE, 2009) and calling for him/her to be positioned as a fully-fledged component of the space of relationships by taking into account different ways of doing, saying and acting, due to the diversity of temporalities, rhythms of development and modes of communication that influence the schooling process.

Beyond the identification of needs, this approach frames the common within different ways of taking part in schooling, when the person is specified by a different learning pace from that of the average students. It also includes in the definition of the common different ways of being part of the school system when relationships with peers and adults are organised differently because of sensorial or cognitive particularities. What is common is also related to the person’s different ways of taking and assuming responsibilities when schooling is a result alternative learning strategies set up by the students or other forms of personal commitment.

By positioning the person with regard to different practices and ways of being compared to others, this capacity matrix promotes an ecological perspective associating the person and his/her surroundings as legitimate co-constructors of the ongoing process instead of considering him/her first and foremost in difficulty and in need of assistance or service. It makes the person a full and complete component of the space of relations presiding over the creation of contexts favourable to the commitment of each one in the ongoing process; and invites the stakeholders involved in this space of relations to see him or her as a subject of rights whose points of view, expectations and demands are crucial to the coherence of the schooling process and to the action carried out jointly by the various stakeholders involved.

As it postulates that each individual has the potential to engage in the processes, provided that the space of relationships established allows it, this capacity matrix encourages to look at the potentialities to be maintained and developed with people to enable them to engage in the processes. It calls for the emphasis to be placed on different ways of doing, saying or acting on the part of professionals and families.

Beyond the response to needs resulting from a physiological, psychological or social particularity it focuses on the strategies deployed by professionals to identify and implement other teaching methods and attitudes whatever the particularity of the pupil. For example, it encourages teachers to orchestrate the usual working methods in a different way by playing on the frequency and fine grading of the support offered, or through a creative adjustment awhere they adapt their methods to a new public of students and find original solutions (FEUILLADIEU; DUNAND, 2019). In addition, it leads professionals of the social and medico-social sector to seek to identify and implement the strategies required to enable those involved in the school, the people concerned and their entourage to take and assume the responsibility of the plan to be implemented and of the decided schooling process. It encourages also families to consider their role as parents in the light of their child’s different way of functioning, which may encourage them to rethink their role as parents in the schooling system as well as in their family life.

This capacity matrix transforms accessibility issues in a normative category subjecting the realisation of rights to the forms of social visibility that it is allowing. Reaching back to the theories of recognition (RENAULT, 2004; HONNETH, 1995; RICOEUR, 1990), it assumes that the modalities underpinning the access to individual rights are part of the process of social codification from which the disabled body is socially embedded, the identification schemes people access to are defined as well as the social conditions they are invited to internalize.

The ways access to rights are implemented mirror the institutionalized forms of recognition to which it is possible to aspire and are a social marker on the basis of which self -representations are formed and patterns of belonging are envisaged (CANGUILHEM, 1996). They acquire therefore an instituting character reflecting the degree of social integrity recognised to individuals and are indicative of the gap between the personal identity that people may claim and the social identity they are recognised. Being denied to access to one’s rights is a symbol of stigma that transforms the components of daily life events into moments during which the social significance given by society to disability is concretely measured (HONNETH, 2000; GOFFMAN, 1974).

This capacity matrix refuses to associate obstacles hindering the implementation of rights to simple barriers revealing a restriction on social participation that is more or less bearable and more or less supported and/or accepted by individuals. It defines these obstacles as institutionalised forms of recognition to which individuals and their families may be entitled to, the effect of which can be disabling when they force the exercise of their rights, lead them to define themselves primarily in terms of their disability and contribute to transforming social relationships into disclosures of disability eroding the social thickness that defines citizenship (EBERSOLD, 2008).

By making accessibility a normative category, it supports a social engineering looking at the realisation of rights and taking into account the symbolic mediation operated by social activities that make up life in society and allowing each individual to be seen as an acting subject and a member of the society. This engineering is not satisfied with the mere adaptation of practices to more or less identified needs, but aims, on the contrary, at the persons’ social empowerment in their social roles and in their social position through the modification of contexts and the creation of an optimal environment of participation, use and/or learning.

The accessibilisation of school contexts is then related to the transitional value of teaching practices and support strategies, i.e. the resources provided to individuals in order to place them in a position to engage legitimately as subjects of rights, co-constructors of the processes at work, to be seen as legitimate in their commitment and to enable them to be on an equal footing in terms of participation (FRASER,2005).

A polycentred approach relating common action to the identification schemes provided to the person

The capacity matrix supported by the polycentred approach demands to focus on the wellsprings of person’s commitment. It correlates the transitional value of practices with the identification schemes that the person finds for legitimately taking part as a partner to define the environment that supports the accessibilitation of the school and social environments, i.e. with the resources that are given to him/her to express himself/herself, to engage in the processes at work and to embed his/her existence in the surrounding world (RICOEUR, 2004).

Figure 2 – A polycentred approach framing the common good within the becoming of the person

Source: Own drafting (2020).

These resources, as shown by the research on the representations of the concept of becoming of persons with SEN³, are organised around the identifying power of the activities carried out and the forms of  social visibility acquired: the opportunity to have the same activities as everybody else embeds schooling in a common acting that is source of social recognition when it allows, some interviewees suggest, to defy the others’ glance, or even to feel as being like everybody else while being different. These resources depend, in addition, on peoples’ possibilities to express choices and to act with words (AUSTIN, 1962).

When questioned on this, some persons see it as a pride in doing things by oneself and the possibility to feel free in one’s gestures and thoughts. These resources also lie in the possibility of saying the past so as to be in the present and to imagine the future for exercising social rights require to project oneself in time and an ability to turn towards a past to be assumed and towards a future to be envisaged in very uncertain contexts. They place people in a position to express their being otherwise capable, to ensure that they are identified in the light of their schooling path and to dare for demanding the support and facilities offered by organisations to meet their obligation of accessibility.

These identifying schemes also reside in the capacity for action conferred on persons to be seen to be legitimate in the exercise of their functions. This capacity for action constitutes a resource when it enables the person to achieve the same tasks as others in order to act in accordance with the requirements of the function exercised.

This ability to do allows one to be seen to be legitimate in the exercise of one's function when it satisfies the routine nature of organising social relationships and, correlatively, prevents the regrettable deviation from the norm revealed by the embarrassment that any deviation in this area causes individuals (GOFFMAN, 1974). This ability to do is a major source of integration and recognition: for some interviewees, being able to do with others means being part of while others define it as the ability to be autonomous in one's work. This ability to do shows a normative closeness of the person when it results, as many people emphasise, from efforts made, courage and ingenuity that have made it possible to overcome the inaccessibility of the school system.

These identification schemes are also based on the knowledge and learning conferred on individuals. They lie in the decision-making power students gain at the end of the upper secondary education through the information provided on the level of accessibility of higher education institutions, the expectations the students or the quality of support and arrangements (EBERSOLD, 2017). They are additionally related to the resources possessed by individuals to value their knowledge and, correlatively, to disqualify the stigmatising characteristics underlying the categorisation as disabled that may be required by texts to access support.

Being in the position to claim I know confers a symbolic capital capable of distancing the ontological link that unites biological otherness with social otherness. Being in position to claim a knowledge operates an institutional work that diminishes the weight of secular representations surrounding the person with special educational needs and imposes new identities, new ways of looking at others.

This institutional work authorises one to think about oneself in a different way and to ask for being thought of differently, especially if the conditions for acquiring this knowledge lead people to consider themselves more deserving than anyone else and to see in the performance achieved the proof of the relativity of the disability. It encourages number of students with SEN to refuse to consider themselves as disabled, believing that the knowledge they possess gives them a merit that people without disabilities cannot always claim (EBERSOLD, 2017). It subsequently requires schools and support structures to develop admission strategies that correlate the disclosure of a need with the quality of the support offered and the optimisation of the chances of success before relating it to any eligibility.

These identification schemes consist furthermore in the sense of the situation that the persons have for asserting skills that allow them to act upon their environment (GOFFMAN, 1974). They reside in the capacity to convert knowledges in resources that can be mobilised in situation so as to adapt to the changing contexts of schooling or of the transition process and to take up new social roles.

This capacity for conversion confers a strategic sense, for example, making it possible to mobilise in a contextual way the friendly and family resources needed to compensate for the inaccessibility of schools or to reconcile the requirements of school curricula with the imperatives of disability.  It presupposes notably information that is sufficiently significant to enable informed action to be taken: when, for example, the documents intended to facilitate the choice of support structures do not contain any information (on the competences involved, the objectives pursued, the methods used, etc.) that would make it possible to assess the appropriateness of the possibilities proposed, any formulation may appear to be useless.

Finally, these identification schemes are to be found in the resources possessed by the persons concerned to take and assume the responsibilities towards themselves and others that are inherent in the exercise of a role, function or activity. These resources lie in the persons’ possibilities of choice possessed that inevitably consist mainly in taking the responsibility of what one does and decides. They also derive from the poles of certainty provided to enable them to dare to engage in the activities and social roles envisaged, for example through support strategies: encouraging awareness of the demands of the pupil's job, employment and housing; providing information on the empowering effect of the accessibilisation strategies of the school environment and of the proposed forms of support (AGENCE EUROPÉENNE POUR LE DÉVELOPPEMENT DE L’ÉDUCATION DES PERSONNES PRÉSENTANT DES BESOINS ÉDUCATIFS PARTICULIERS, 2006; NASET, 2005).

The polycentred approach relates the symbolic and practical framework, around which the space of possibilities is constructed, conditioning schooling on students’ narrative identity (RICOEUR, 1990), beyond the access to common law systems or the satisfaction of needs. It underpins the transitional value of school and social trajectories to the enabling effect of practices and to the possibilities offered to the concerned persons to be actively engaged in the processes and more generally in life in society. It correlates the becoming to the possibility given to individuals to take and assume responsibilities linked to the activities carried out and to the access to plural identities resulting from the confrontation with a plurality of social universes and a multiplicity of roles beyond social performance materialised by an active contribution to the economic and social well-being of society reflected in educational, professional or social achievements.

In this respect, the polycentred approach leads to define becoming as the fact of being in a position to commit oneself, in a contextualised manner in time and space, in a social function and to take on and assume the responsibilities associated with it by being able to legitimately assert knowledge, competence, a capacity to act and to speak up. It links this becoming to the prior identification of a future perspective understood in terms of access to the rights recognised to the individual, his/her expectations, desires and dreams and the conditions for the exercise of these rights.

A polycentred approach rooted in equitable systems for cooperation

Putting the becoming of the individual at the centre of public action connects additionally the transitional value of practice to the wellsprings of cooperation and, more particularly, to the objective and subjective possibilities created to transform collective work into a working collective through the development of equitable systems for cooperation.

By framing the ongoing action within the persons’ becoming, the polycentred approach correlates the joint action with the work of composing differences, whether of a cognitive, capacity or statutory nature, carried out to establish a legitimate order. Cooperation becomes thus an investment in form with its codes, uses, norms and standards on which the stakeholders can rely for establishing agreements, i.e. collectively defined normative benchmarks presiding over the coherence and cohesion of the bonds between stakeholders to ensure a free and contextualised expression of each one’s competences in a concern for mutual recognition (THÉVENOT, 2006).

The polycentred approach situates the springs of cooperation in a reticular dynamic which encourages the parties involved to define themselves as the component of a work whose quality is based on the recognition of each and every one and the involvement of all and encourages them to structure the action of each other for the commonly defined achievement (ARENDT, 1983). It recognises that the personalisation and the contextualisation of practices results from the rules established by stakeholders involved to define and implement joint action, to articulate the different rationalities and to build the inter-individual and inter-institutional coherence necessary for carrying out the planed action.

Figure 3 – A polycentred approach source of interdependency

Source: Own drafting (2020).

This network dynamic organises the coherence of the links between the stakeholders around a collectively defined common action according to the interests, expectations, roles and place of each one so as to ensure the integration in the system of each actor independently from his/her position in the space of relationships.

It supports the development of forms of cooperation prompting the stakeholders to work together to define the differentiation links binding them through the definition of the commonly undertaken action as well as the division of the tasks and the distribution of the roles that are ensuring the complementarity of actions.

It encourages, for example, the stakeholders to define operating standards that are both individual and shared, flexible and appropriate which make it possible to overpass the rules of organisation of work that govern the functioning of settings and support structures, while ensuring the complementarity of the actions of each party likely to ensure everyone's commitment (ASENCIO, 2006).

The links uniting the stakeholders acquire a collective character that helps to embed inter-individual interactions in a relationship of institutional, organisational and functional interdependence, giving the social links uniting individuals a sufficiently organic character to establish, in sustainable, predictable and well-known ways, working relationships and ways of being and doing conducive to everyone's commitment to the common achievement of the challenge (EBERSOLD, 2008).

The polycentred approach also places the development of identification links at the heart of social relationships. By organising the definition of the common good around the person's becoming, it connects the cohesion of the links uniting the stakeholders to the feeling of common belonging that the creation of a common space for sharing and exchange and the forms of recognition linked to it allows.

It is for example, an incentive for stakeholders to agree on the conditions for reciprocal exchanges and to put together arrangements that can overcome the isolation that players may feel as a result of the compartmentalization and rigidities of work organization and work cultures (ALTER, 2000; FEUILLADIEU; DUNAND, 2019). It is also an incentive to take into consideration the forms of uncertainty faced by stakeholders and, consequently, to identify the areas of certainty needed to place everyone, including the people concerned and their families, in a position to act in uncertain contexts, to commit themselves to the collective to be developed and to take on and assume the responsibilities associated with it. The development of identification links also promotes a diachronic perspective that leads to consider the components that support the fluidity and coherence of the school career, such as the articulation of institutional rhythms with individual rhythms, the conjugation of school rhythms and activities with the requirements of the disability or disorder, the articulation of the school and extra-curricular dimensions, the endorsement of new identities by the persons concerned, etc.

The focus on the conditions and forms of cooperation established by the stakeholders, as called for by the polycentred approach supports the development of equitable systems of cooperation co- implying the mechanisms specifying those systems of corporate action that are rational in purpose and those that characterise community action systems that are rational in values and beliefs (WEBER, 1971)

This co-implication frames the exchanges between stakeholders within an associative contractuality (BIDET, 2000, p.62). This supports the emergence of a public space for action, i.e. a collective feeling affected by the same problem and undertaking to collectively seek solutions to the issues that arise, by enabling players from different professional cultures and/or institutional backgrounds to form a primary group for a fixed period of time, rather than a simple aggregate of individuals acting by virtue of an institutionally, organisationally and functionally predefined role and place (BUREAU et al., 2019).

This public space for action places practices in an organized totality made up of interdependent and supportive elements that can only be defined in relation to to their place in the totality while combining, in a flexible way, disparate elements referring to the interests and concerns of stakeholders, and establishes frames of reference adapted to one or more given contexts.

  In doing so, it sets up work collectives that allow individuals with varying profiles and positions, but within the same space, to work together, because they share common values, experiences, interests and projects. It also supports the emergence of a collective competence that is not only conducive to the personalisation and contextualisation of practices, but also to the building of collective social capital that can counterbalance the potentially negative effects of personal biographies and socio-economic contexts  (DARDOT; LAVAL, 2014; LECOUTRE, 2003).

Concluding remarks

The polysystemic nature of schooling of learners with SEN in mainstream settings implies rejecting the individual/society polarity, which puts the emphasis primarily on individual interactions, in favour of a polycentred approach. The latter places the becoming of the individual at the centre of concerns in order to consider the forms of interdependence generated by the players to frame the environment and build the social conditions necessary for openness to individual particularities.

Such a perspective focuses on the symbolic commensurability existing between the individual and the collective dimensions and questions the transitional value of practice (BOURDIEU, 1997; ELIAS, 1991). This transitional value lies in the enabling effect of practices, i.e. in the resources conferred on people to be in a position to be active stakeholders in the processes at work, but also to be seen as legitimate in the exercise of their function and to be at parity of participation.

Putting persons’ becoming at the centre of public action thus leads to focus on the mechanisms (including those referring to assessment) and transitions opportunities framing  educational pathways as well as on factors facilitating or, conversely, hindering the continuity of pathways ranging from an expected power to act (I say , I do, I know, I can, I act) to a power to act conferred through the mobilisation of means and strategies attributing to the person the resources enabling him/her to say, do, know, can and act in a contextualised manner in time and space.

The polycentred approach includes moreover, the identity related issues which inevitably underlie any implementation of a joint plan of action, making each stakeholder a key player in devising strategies to promote learning for all people, without demanding them to take solely the responsibility for learner’s school career.

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Notas

¹ This research is based on the answers to a questionnaire proposed to 293 persons attending the last class of high school in 2007 and on 12 interviews.

² According to Ricoeur, ipséity designates a person's own identity, i.e. the self that makes him or her unique, distinguishes him or her from another and founds his or her otherness. This notion refers to the fundamental nature of the being conscious of being oneself, of his/her position in a social space. It makes the narrative of the self the principle of a power to be oneself among others inherent to any form of participation in collective action.

³ This still ongoing research  began in 2015 with collective interviews with persons with intellectual disabilities.

Correspondence

Serge Ebersold – Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Rue Saint-Martin, 292, Paris – France.

CEP: 75003

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)