Las redes sociales como herramienta para trabajar actitudes hacia la inclusión

Resumen

Teacher training in the field of inclusive education cannot solely rely on the acquisition of conceptual knowledge. The cultivation of resolutely open and positive attitudes towards inclusion is a crucial element if we aim for initial education to play a decisive role in improving inclusion indicators. Nevertheless, effectively shaping these positive attitudes towards inclusion is not a straightforward task (Lacruz-Pérez et al., 2021). Therefore, during the 23/24 academic year, the Faculty of Education at the University of Valencia is undertaking an initiative in which we employ social media as a tool to address attitudes with pre-service teachers. In this initiative, we present practical cases to the students, the majority of which are real cases sourced from mainstream media, depicting unfair situations that question the right to the presence, participation, and learning of students with specific educational support needs. Based on the analyses of these cases, we ask students to put themselves in the shoes of a teacher involved in the situation and to create social media messages in which they denounce these situations and propose actions aimed at improving the educational practices described in the cases. Students are also required to elaborate theoretical arguments that support the messages disseminated on social media. Among these arguments, we recommend including specific regulations that safeguard the right to inclusive education and the theoretical principles underpinning the inclusive education movement. We intend to include the use of familiar codes to students (social media messages) as a tool to address the attitudes of pre-service teachers. The initial experiences have resulted in well-crafted assignments in which students have marshaled sound theoretical arguments to justify the social media messages they have proposed. Therefore, during the latter part of the academic year, we aim to extend this initiative to a larger number of student groups