School inclusion and “All For Education” movement

Abstract

This paper analyzes inclusion by considering one of the five goals established by one of the most fruitful movements of the Brazilian civil society to guarantee that every child and youth have access to good quality education by 2022: the “All for Education” Movement, created in 2006. From a genealogical perspective as proposed by Michel Foucault, the research analyzes both the provenience and emergence of the Movement in the Brazilian educational scenario early in this century and its implications on educational policies. Performativity, a concept here understood according to Stephen Ball’s theorizations, has been established in the contemporary educational scenario, as the genealogical analysis has shown. By analyzing excerpts from publications and reports monitoring the goals set by the “All for Education” Movement, we have concluded that school inclusion has taken on the function of minimizing social risk, and the relationship between performativity and inclusion has become a paradox. On the one hand, in a school system grounded on performativity requirements, the inclusion of all is not negotiable and is absolutely necessary to reduce social risk and improve Brazil’s position in international education rankings; on the other hand, those who are “included” threaten the school performativity, since their performances in large-scale evaluations are often regarded as too poor to meet the goals set by the “All for Education” Movement.