ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1549712
Schools as learning communities for inclusion: Insights from case studies of two school clusters in Portugal
Provisionally accepted
- 1Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre, CARE, Portalegre, Portugal
- 2Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre, Portalegre, Portugal
- 3Instituto de Educação, Universidade de Lisboa, UIDEF, Lisboa, Portugal
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Introduction: Schools are facing increasing diversity in student origins due to migrations. The INCLUD-ED approach aims to transform schools into learning communities to increase social cohesion, inclusion, and academic success through successful educational actions like interactive groups, literary gatherings, community participation, dialogical teacher training, and a dialogical model of conflict resolution. Methods: This research analyzed two school clusters in Portugal implementing the INCLUD-ED approach, focusing on practices and impacts on learning, relationships, and inclusion. A qualitative case study method was used, involving interviews with adults and focus groups with students. Results: Both schools promoted literary gatherings and interactive groups. Teacher engagement varied, but most participants agreed the approach increased family/community involvement and enhanced academic and socio-emotional learning. Discussion: The INCLUD-ED approach appears to transform schools into more inclusive learning communities, though full implementation faces some challenges. Further research is needed to evaluate long-term impacts.
Keywords: Inclusive education, Schools as learning communities, Student diversity, project INCLUD-ED, inclusive schools
Received: 21 Dec 2024; Accepted: 02 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Martins, Marchão, Oliveira, Caetano and Tinoca. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Maria José D. Martins, Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre, CARE, Portalegre, Portugal
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