Towards an inclusive school in Portugal: the challenges experienced by professionals in educational contexts

Abstract

On July 6, 2018, Decree-Law (DL) 54/2018 was enacted revoking the previous Decree-Law 3/2008 that regulated Special Education in Portugal. In favor of a truly inclusive school, a legal framework appears, aligned with a holistic view and with a continuous and integrated approach to the school path. Because of this legislative change, there was an interest in studying this initial moment of transition experienced by professionals in educational contexts. Through a qualitative methodology, using semi-structured interviews with 17 professionals from Portuguese educational contexts, and the subsequent categorical analysis of its content, there was an attempt to understand what difficulties and solutions these professionals encountered in this initial moment of transition. The identified categories were based on relevant aspects to the study’s aims, on the concepts and themes suggested by literature, and on the interview questions. Several difficulties were identified, such as the lack of resources (e.g., lack of training; lack of time), the demarcation of previous legislation and the adjustment of the new roles’ definition by the entire educational community (including families), and factors of a macrosystemic nature such as the characteristics of the teaching category, and the inconsistencies in the information provided and in the requirements. As for solutions, they pointed out: support in the training domain, emotional support, and logistical support (e.g., human resources). These results indicate that, according to these professionals, this was a transition process marked by several difficulties that can be overcome by everyone’s joint agency: higher levels, intermediate structures, educational professionals and families.