The Future of Education

One of the distinctive features of the post-modern society is undoubtedly the diversity of the population, which is resulted especially because of multiculturalism (Verdeja, 2017). This growing diversity is reflected in the school context, in which the foreign immigrant students increased the already existing heterogeneity within the students group. The plural nature of the society often entails the discrimination and exclusion of those individuals who do not conform to the “normality” standards established by the society. The situations of social inequality, which implies educational inequalities as well, are built on different central axes. In this work, we will reflect on the construction of difference and inequality resulting from the intersectionality of two variables, the disability and the ethnic-cultural origin. In the discrimination analysis, the term "intersectionality" was introduced by Crenshaw in 1980, who used the image of a crossroads where two causes of discrimination could be found. In the scientific literature, there is a significant lack of studies that aim at combining both categories. Furthermore, the "single-axis approach" has been used hegemonically (Crenshaw 1989), thus the reasons for the discrimination have been separated and studied independently from each other. Already in 2009, in the education field, the report made by the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education showed that there are very few research results on immigrant students with disabilities. Though, besides that, there is a noticeable broad number of studies on each of the variables studied singularly. Considering that school has a dual function, a manifest one aimed at providing social justice and a latent one of reproducing inequality, we find that it is relevant and necessary to generate a debate on these categories, linking them to the education field, thus, it can touch both the research field and the education practices one.

Keywords: Immigration, disability, inequality, education.

References:
[1] Crenshaw, K. (1989) Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139–167; http://philpapers.org/archive/CREDTI.pdf
[2] Verdeja, M. (2017). Atención a la diversidad cultural del alumnado: un recorrido por leyes de educación de ámbito español. Revista Internacional de Educación para la Justicia Social. 6 (1), 367-382.
[3] Agencia Europea para el Desarrollo de la Educación del Alumnado con Necesidades Educativas Especiales (2009). Multiculturalidad y necesidades educativas especiales. Odense, Dinamarca: Agencia Europea para el Desarrollo de la Educación del Alumnado con Necesidades Educativas Especiales.