Introduction

This paper focuses on the educational inclusion of people with disabilities in the light of the critical theory of society (CTS). It is an attempt to expand our view on this issue going beyond the “extreme points”, possible to glimpse, even “by stretching out the pupils”, like ^Calvino’s (1991/2007, p. 227) metaphor suggests, cited in the epigraph above. At first, reflecting on inclusive education may seem outdated since a lot has been debated on this topic. However, there is an urgent need to deepen this issue when we realise the gap between the numerous inclusivist propositions and the harsh reality of socio-educational exclusion experienced by people with disabilities worldwide, especially in Brazil, where they can barely access the school. Therefore, it is urgent to critically reflect on what we named “inclusive education” from an analytical perspective, based on refer ences that can destabilise the conventional thinking based on the above considerations.

What motivated us to write this bibliographic study was the eagerness to analyse the challenges and the possibilities for the inclusion of people with disabilities in the contemporary socio-educational context. In this sense, we initially approached the possible inclusive education contradictions that reveal challenges to be overcome. And then, we discussed the formation’s possibilities as a way to awaken the identification with the human diversity that makes us together, persecuting, whenever possible, a dialectical and reflexive way of thinking.

Contradictions of the Inclusive Education in Contemporaneity

The discussion on educational inclusion has invigorated from the decade of 1990 on, in the last century. It was significantly strengthened in the education area, in human sciences, due to the social movements’ pressure to defend the rights of people with disabilities. In this context, some international and national documents of public policies for inclusive education, among which it is worth mentioning in the international context: the World Declaration on Education for All (^{Declaração Mundial Sobre Educação Para Todos, 1990}), the Salamanca Statement (^{Declaração de Salamanca, 1994}), the Inter American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (^{Decreto nº 3.956, 2001}), and the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (^{Decreto nº 6.949, 2009}). In Brazil, we emphasised: Law of Lines of Direction and Bases of Education (^{Lei nº 9.394, 1996}), the National Policy for Special Education in the Inclusive Education Perspective (^{Dutra et al., 2008}), and the Brazilian Law of Inclusion (^{Lei Brasileira de Inclusão da Pessoa com Deficiência, 2015}).

We emphasise that the Brazilian legislation has many publications that try to guarantee the rights of people with disabilities. Some of them were rewritten in several ways, such as the one that forbids educational institutions to refuse the enrollment of students with disabilities or global developmental delays. It remains a common practice in many schools, however. When we deeply analyse the Brazilian legislation history on this issue, we observe that the publications follow the trends of the international discourses without necessarily changing the political and social attitude to elaborate such documents.

Many studies and research were conducted addressing educational inclusion and inclusive education as a single concept throughout this time. According to ^{Bueno (2008}), “school inclusion refers to a political proposition in action, of incorporating students who have been traditionally excluded from school, whereas Inclusive Education refers to a political goal to be achieved” (p. 49). Replacing nomenclatures to indicate the enrollment of “inclusion students”¹ in traditional educational institutions is not enough. Bueno (²⁰⁰⁸) emphasises that educational inclusion presupposes enrolling students in the past excluded from school in traditional educational institutions in compliance with the current legislation. On the other hand, inclusive education is a political goal to be achieved in the short, medium, and long term, through numerous actions that favour different forms of learning, ensuring respect for differences, and valuing human diversity.

The differentiation between the two terms can point to a deeper analysis of the issue. However, we consider that establishing a definition is not the most relevant point in this discussion, but the complete understanding that when education² is effectively inclusive, it will no longer be necessary to define and/or differentiate it from educational inclusion. Proper education should provide everyone with full development, offering learning alternatives that favour identifying potentialities and overcoming challenges through the formation. Otherwise, we ran the risk of (re)producing a pseudo-formation/semi-formation (^Adorno, 1972/2010) by condoning social injustice that biases individuals and/ or social groups to prejudice and social discrimination, invariably incompatible with the principles that rule inclusive education.

We use the pseudo-formation/semi-formation concept defined by ^Adorno (1972/2010) when we state that individuals are being submitted from birth to shape themselves in culture and adapt to society, which merely leads to an adaptation to the cultural environment only. ^Adorno (1972/2010) argues that “cultural formation now converts into a socialised semi-formation, with the omnipresence of an alienated spirit, which according to its genesis and its meaning, does not precede cultural formation, but succeeds it” (p. 9). He states that “despite all the illustration and information, which is widespread (even with his help), semi-formation prevails in current consciousness” (^Adorno, 1972/2010, p. 9).

It is necessary to perceive and announce the challenges inherent to educational inclusion, resulting from the objective social conditions, without failing to bet on its possibilities, especially regarding the posture of radical opposition to the socio-educational exclusion processes that highlight only the individual’s special needs to the detriment of the education institutions conditions that hinder and/or prevent formation, replacing it with mere adaptation. As the educational institutions’ conditions remain unchanged, barriers to learning, in general, tend to be even more intensified for those students who have been traditionally excluded from school, as long as they do not fit the standards of normality established by culture. This fact constantly raises the emergence of prejudicial behaviour about educational inclusion itself. We reiterate that identifying the difficulties that prevent educational inclusion, among which prejudices, does not mean disagreeing with this proposition. It indicates the need to face what is posed, committing to envision viable alternatives to confront such impediments.

Recognising the barriers regarding educational inclusion may constitute a “first step” to locating the blockages in the individual and, consequently, in the society that makes them opposed to the inclusive experience. Such blockages need to be portrayed because they reveal the existence of a scar that we have to bear. Aware of its causes, we try to resist the risks of new wounds proliferation, especially those (im)posed by the so- cial tissue, due to the experience restriction. In that sense, ^Adorno (1970/1995) warns us:

it is needed to recognise the mechanisms that make people able to commit such acts; it is needed to reveal such mechanisms to themselves, trying to prevent them from becoming able to do such acts again, to arouse a general awareness about such mechanisms. (p. 121)

According to CTS assumptions, the mechanisms pointed out by Adorno originated from psychic and social determinations that are interrelated since their genesis. Aware of our predisposition to the mentioned mechanisms, resulting from the contradictions plot inherent to the model of society in which we live, perhaps it is possible to expand our view to envision alternatives that favour starters for a more complete educational inclusion, even considering the challenges that prevent and/or hinder its emergence in the contemporary socio-educational context.

Inclusive Education: The Formation as a Path to Awakening the Identification With Human Diversity That Constitutes Us

Thinking inclusive education is not an easy duty. It assumes a contextualised analysis, as there is no unique perspective of educational inclusion in a country or an educational institution that is universal. ^{Ainscow (2009}) states that “different groups in different contexts think of inclusion differently and, again, there is no single, consensual definition” (p. 21). The author summarised some ways to think about inclusion and presented international trends analysis regarding inclusive education within five conceptual perspectives:

After the publication of the Salamanca Statement³, some countries outlined some initiatives to transform their policies in the educational inclusion defence (^Mittler, 2000/2003). Research and studies, such as those by ^{Ainscow (2009}), ^Mittler (2000/2003), among others, demonstrate that educational inclusion in developing countries is more difficult to achieve. That is because of the lack of institutional and financial support to meet the students’ special educational needs in an inclusion situation. There are specific institutional support programs and financial assistance provided by the State to provide such policies in developed countries. However, the proposal for educational inclusion is not always welcomed by those countries: in Spain, a country that hosted the first announcement of this statement, there are many criticisms of the inclusion proposal (^{Pacheco et al., 2007}); as well as in Portugal, where the official legislation supports educational inclusion, but, in parallel, the State also supports the creation of new specialised schools.

Concerning Latin America, ^{Rodriguez (2012}) drew an overview of inclusive educational practices, evidencing that, in general, the limits for the implementation of inclusive education in this region - considered one of the world’s most unequal - are directly related to the poverty conditions, since:

undoubtedly, poverty in Latin America is a clear result of the unequal distribution of resources and unequal access to production, but, at the same time, it also generates features that make it more complex and difficult to be resolved. One of the characteristics of great concern is the loss of social capital, which is reflected in serious social problems such as violence and social insecurity (empashis added). The other is State fragmentation, which results in poor planning and disperses and non-effective actions as possibilities to solve the situation. (^{Rodriguez, 2012}, p. 70)

This situation seems to have favoured most Latin American countries, including Brazil, to adhere to the educational inclusion policies proposed by Unesco and other international agencies, in the perspective that the efforts were undertaken to implement these policies leverage changes, at least, to contain the exclusion processes spread through the inclusion discourse.

In Brazil, we verified that in recent decades there had been a sharp increase in the number of students with disabilities enrolled in traditional institutions in all segments of teaching, from kindergarten to higher education, as indicated in the document of the National Policy for Special Education in the Inclusive Education Perspective (^{Dutra et al., 2008}). Most recent data, published by the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (²⁰¹⁰, ²⁰²¹) on the 2010 and 2020 school census, reveal that in the last 10 years, the number of students with disabilities and global developmental delays enrolled in regular classes of public schools increased 85%. In 2010 there were 702,603, and in 2020, 1,300,000 students received special⁴education, 92.8% in regular classes.

However, the conditions of access, permanence and course completion for students with disabilities in the Brazilian educational system remain precarious in most educational institutions. Although educational systems allocate resources to implement these policies, the education scenario in Brazil remains precarious, especially about the people with disabilities schooling. We could consider questioning these resources’ destinations, as ^{Bueno (2008}) pointed out, but this issue deserves a more profound discussion that could be discussed in another study. We consider that the obstacles faced in implementing the educational inclusion proposal in countries such as Brazil may be related, among other issues, to the analysis made by ^Martins (1997) on the meaning of inclusion policies in exclusion contexts. In the sociologist’s understanding, inclusion policies can even, involuntarily, lead the “included” to a “precarious, unstable and marginal inclusion” (^Martins, 1997, p. 20) due to the capitalist system maintenance that (re)produces within the educational institutions, such as the case of family, school, university, among others.

The inclusion conceptions categorised by ^{Ainscow (2009}) mentioned above were created in diverse international contexts and, as such, present different conceptual perspectives. The author above compared an additional possibility of considering inclusive education in the research conducted in English schools, in 2006, with the collaboration of other scholars in the field. They believe that this proposal should be linked to the “inclusive values related to equality, participation, community, compassion, and respect for diversity, sustainability, and law” (^Ainscow, 2009, p. 19).

We share the thinking of inclusive education, but we emphasise that when it comes to the formation, constructing values should start in childhood, as ^Adorno (1970/1995) suggests. However, an education proposal focused on developing human values from early childhood depends on implementing a collective educational policy taken concomitantly by individuals and society. According to the CTS’s assumptions, this policy should be led by managers, teachers, parents, students, administrative employees, and the community, committed to ensuring formation based on experience and critical self-reflection. Otherwise, we run the risk of imposing values in later phases of difficult assimilation for individuals who had been through traumatic experiences, usually resulting from prejudice, which can hinder and/or prevent the possibility of emerging such values.

An education proposal aimed at forming human values implies the possibility of recognising oneself and the other as individuals, invariably belonging to human universal, accomplices of common rights and duties, necessary for a dignified life. In that sense, ^{Silva (2015}) remarks:

Formation from the perspective of inclusive education should enable the people’s awareness, in seeing the other as legal subjects whose potential are different, and therefore cannot be seen according to the standards of “normality” or “uniformity” of people’s capacities, as if it were possible to format them. (p. 100)

Inclusive education presupposes a formation that enables us, in the development of the socialisation process, the opportunity to differentiate ourselves to realise how diverse we are and, subsequently, to understand that this diversity makes us, dialectically, similar. Thus, ^Crochick et al. (2013) argue that “identification does not imply being identical, but rather the need for a universal cultural background - incorporated by individuals allowing themselves to express the differences” (p. 21). Therefore, the individuation process is a product of socialisation. We are socialised to differentiate ourselves; it is a process that assumes the achievement of alterity and autonomy. In other terms, as ^Crochick (2011) highlights, we can state that the individuation process occurs through our ability to differentiate ourselves, as we are encouraged to express our differences and, concomitantly, we learn to accept others’ differences. In contrast, culture usually imposes on us a process of idealisation in which we are forced to accept and assimilate patterns normalised by society, in general, inconsistent with socially denied identities. When we are restricted from the possibility of individuation, we learn unconsciously to deny our differences not accepted by culture and/or civilisation because we “socialised in tow”, unable to differentiate ourselves, to recognise who we really are. Consequently, we cannot bear to recognise the difference in the other because it reminds us of our sub alternity in the face of objective social conditions.

To what extent is it possible to glimpse inclusive education from the perspective of the values defined by ^{Ainscow (2009}) in social contexts that hinder and/or prevent the individuation process? The individuation, that is, the individual differentiation process that leads us to identify with “one of the similar”, is a fundamental condition of our human nature. Because, “even before being individual, man is one of the peers, he relates to others before explicitly referring to the self; it is a moment in the relationships in which one lives before he can finally reach self-determination” (^{Horkheimer &} Adorno, 1956/1973, p. 47).

Therefore, the identification resulting from the individuation process makes us capable of differentiating and, dialectically, empowers us to embrace the numerous manifestations of differences inherent to human diversity that also constitutes us. Therefore, we became naturally predisposed to include, insofar as we identify ourselves with the other. Identification, as ^{Crochick (2011)} states, “can be defined as the search for the universal, in particular, its denial is concerned with this universal: the other is not recognised in its humanity” (p. 37). Hence, it is impossible to consider the educational inclu sion of the other, not recognised in his humanity as one of us - in the “pain and the delight of being what one is”⁵ and/or who one is. In order to be included, it is necessary self-recognition, and, also, to be recognised by the human universal who makes us an integral part of human diversity, regardless of our differences and/or particularities of social, economic, cultural, physical, cognitive, sensorial, ethnic, religious, among others.

In this way, for inclusive education to be actually effective, the identification be- tween individuals must happen based on the certainty that all men and women belong to human universal, capable of incorporating each particular (different) as an indispen sable part of human diversity. Otherwise, ^{Ainscow (2009}) suggests that the inclusive values no longer apply, as they tend to succumb to the pitfalls imposed by non-inclusive socialisation processes, which we are subjected to constantly.

It is noteworthy that the problem of educational inclusion exceeds the propositions of public documents and policies. We assume that it is linked to the living and survival conditions of students and educators and the population as a whole. However, the relevance of public policies to leverage the possibilities and highlight the challenges of inclusive education cannot be underestimated. It is proved when we take as a parameter the analysis and critical reflection of the impact of these policies in progress in the different educational contexts. Hence we need to consider inclusion from a framework that allows us to understand the contradictions listed in this reflection.

When cultural formation does not allow our individuation and imposes forced socialisation based on the capitalist modes of production, identification tends to be denied and/or replaced by idealisation. In identification, idealisation can emerge when we face something or someone unknown/different, but, as we have the opportunity to experience what causes us strangeness, idealisation can be metamorphosed into identification. We discovered the same human metaphor in other species: caterpillars turn into butterflies in their cocoons, but we need to recognise the transcendence power of the caterpillar in the cocoon.

The socialisation process tends to be favoured through the individuation process that is possible due to the possibility of individual differentiation in society. Given the opportunity to perceive oneself as different and to have the differences welcomed, it is latent in the individual’s need to accept the difference in the other. In contrast, when individuation is previously denied in the mass socialisation process, the possibilities of welcoming the difference of oneself and the other are aborted since models are always imposed to “clone a butterfly”, taking the metaphor mentioned. Instead of recognising the butterfly’s latent presence in the caterpillar, mass culture undermines and devalues the “caterpillar” expression possibilities represented by human diversity. Thereby, the butterfly condition is idealised, denying the transcendence represented by the cocoon inherent to the species. One needs to understand, to break with this cycle that culminates in the social denial of difference, as pointed out by ^{Crochick (2011)} , that “in each particular, the difference enunciates another possibility of being, which strengthens indi viduation and society” (p. 34).

In general, identification is not encouraged in our formation, but it is vehemently denied, in the family, school, university, religious orders, workplace, media, or other institutions responsible for our cultural formation. We deny ourselves by denying identification with the other since we belong to human diversity. The difference is our main feature, regardless of our choices and/or particularities. Thus, “this denial is illusory, because clearly what is human can be recognised in all people; anyone who denies identification has to force the ignorance that something in himself is common to the other and vice versa” (^{Crochick, 2011, p. 37}). Perceiving and identifying the processes that can lead us to deny the presence of the other in us is of fundamental importance to avoid strengthening a cultural formation unfavourable to inclusive values development.

As already mentioned, the possibility of critically reflecting on oneself and the other should be encouraged in our formation since early childhood. However, for this to happen, it is necessary to think about the meanings of our own formation in contemporaneity: How does our formation interfere with the constitution of our values? To what extent is our formation committed to the “emancipation of men”⁶? How are social inequalities justified in societies that produced enough knowledge and technologies to overcome them? What is the role of a formation that coexists with social injustice and, in parallel, does not admit the differences manifestation so relevant to human diversity? How can we foster the development of human values’ development in a society in which suffering and death are banalised every day?

These questions are consistent with what was already advocated by ^Adorno (1970/1995) when he highlighted the coexistence inconsistency of so many technological and scientific advances with an increase in the same intensity of social inequalities. ^Adorno (1970/1995) indicates the need to focus the educational objectives on making us human,

being in the civilisation of the highest technological development, people find themselves held back in a peculiarly uneven way regarding their own civilisation - and not just because they have not experienced, in their overwhelming majority, the formation in the terms corresponding to the concept of civilisation, but also because they were taken by primitive ag gressiveness, a primitive hatred, or, in cultured terminology, an impulse of destruction, which contributes to further increase the danger that this whole civilisation has come to explode, in fact, an immanent trend that characterises it. I consider it so urgent to prevent this that I would reorder all the other educational objects for this priority. (p. 155)

In order to permanently encourage human values development based on social justice, solidarity, the culture of peace, cooperation, and ethics, formation urgently needs to oppose the social model that produces it. These questions reveal how we are far from a correct formation and, simultaneously, they denounce the urgent need for a formation that stimulates us to call into question and, mainly, to outrage us in the face of the precarious living conditions that hinder and/or prevent our individuation and, consequently, makes inclusive education unfeasible. Again, in the words of ^Adorno (1972/2010), “the only possibility of survival that remains to culture is the critical self-reflection on the semi-formation, in which it was necessarily converted” (p. 39).

In Brazil, the proposal for inclusive education seems to glimpse these values. At least in the public policy documents, expressed in the National Policy of Special Education from the Perspective of Inclusive Education (^{Dutra et al., 2008}), which defines inclusive education as an

educational paradigm based on the concept of human rights, which combines equality and difference as inseparable values, and which advances in relation to the idea of formal equity by contextualising the historical circumstances of the production of exclusion inside and outside the school. (p. 5)

In the international scenario, ^{Ainscow (2009}) demonstrated, through research, the meanings of the inclusive values and its implications for inclusive education to be conceived as:

a process of transforming values into action, resulting in educational practices and services, in systems and structures that embody such values. We can specify some of them because they are an integral part of our inclusion concept; others we can identify with a reasonable degree of certainty, based on what we learned from experiences. That means that inclusion can only be fully understood when its fundamental values are exhaustively clarified in particular contexts. (p. 21)

The transformation of values into action suggested by ^{Ainscow (2009}) seems to be linked to the proper formation, which, according to ^Adorno (1970/1995), must be based on experience and critical self-reflection. The lack of self-reflection would make every inclusive education proposal run the risk of being aborted since its beginning, especially in the contemporary context. The denial of human and/or inclusive values results from a precarious formation, marked by the absence of experience and critical self-reflection that contributes to the spread of prejudice and social discrimination. When prevented from the individuation process that would allow us to recognise and express our differences, we tend not to accept the differences of others because we become unable to establish identifications, especially with those who have differences relevant to human diversity, socially underestimated due to the idealisation processes established by our cultural formation. In this sense, ^Adorno (1970/1995) warns us: “it is necessary to counteract such a lack of awareness, it is necessary to avoid people striking to the sides without reflecting about themselves” (p. 121).

It is worth noting that the inclusive values cited by ^{Ainscow (2009}) are similar to the values defended in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (^{Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos, 1948}), which must be incorporated by everyone, regardless of any specific educational proposition. On the one hand, perhaps the “inclusive” education qualifier is just a redundancy to remind us of how we are moving away from our human nature due to the impossibility of having experience and reflecting on oneself and the other. On the other hand, reaffirming the need to exercise these values is also another way of expressing our desire for a more dignified life and denouncing our hunger for social justice.

In this sense, ^{Crochick et al. (2020)} argue that truly inclusive education will only be possible when the discussions on human rights and public policies manage that the struggle for a democratic society could be mediated by the experience and the awareness process of an emancipating human education. That way, it would be capable of pointing out the contradictions the society keeps reinforcing. In the respective authors’ opinion, any form of inclusion, especially the educational, will only be possible when we overcome the contradictions inherent to a violent society. We must enhance the arguments used to defend a constant review and update of the inclusive education proposals and keep the efforts to grant individuals a reflexive formation, to face a still undemocratic society, contradictory, about the understanding and acceptance of diversity as part of us.

Conclusions

In conclusion, we can infer that the possibility of building human values and/or “inclusive values” (^{Ainscow, 2009}) depends mainly on the possibility of perceiving our differences through the individuation process and, consequently, establishing identifications with our fellow beings, especially with those considered more fragile, because this is the only way we aroused to recognise our own fragility, inherent to human nature.

The conquering of a fully inclusive education requires the permanent struggle for a cultural and educational formation capable of countering, as much as possible, the psychic and social determinations that prevent and/or limit the manifestation of the differences present in human diversity. Otherwise, we will be condemned to fall into the plot of idealised inclusion that insists on threatening the possibilities of the existence of naturally inclusive human values.

Finally, it is worth emphasising that thinking of inclusive education requires the recognition of the contradictions inherent to such a proposal, considering our model of society that still insists on dehumanising us, even in the face of the achievements of legal rights and a pandemic scenario revealing the natural vulnerability to humans. However, it is necessary to seek the experience footprints in the contemporary cultural formation, even considering its limits, because the problem of educational inclusion exceeds the scope of education in the formal sense of the word.

It is urgent to reflect on a society model that maintains inequalities to strengthen and/or “trading” places to be achieved in a power hierarchy. Thus, we understand that in contemporaneity, the individuation and socialisation processes are related and, for that, our educational practices need to highlight the contradictions present in the current attempt at social inclusion to promote a cultural formation. The formation needs to make people capable of countering this adaptation that does not question the status quo and cannot resist everything that prevents us from identifying ourselves with the fragility inherent to our species and from realising how much specificity exists in human universal.