Project of the Chair Diversity and Educational Inclusion
“Resignifying Differences” was an initiative of Liliana Arciniegas, professor of Basic and Initial Education careers, as part of the Diversity and Educational Inclusion Chair, with the aim of complementing the training process of students in the ninth cycle of the career of Basic and Special Education of the University of Azuay.
Arciniegas comments that the idea was to create a space where, through reflection, dialogue and special guests, conceptions and ideas that we have in the environment about Inclusive Education are changed.
“We use a language that reduces, cages, categorizes and we do not realize it. Inclusion is fashionable, however, this time of pandemic has highlighted the inequity, injustice, exclusion and discrimination that have always been present, but that in this country and in others have been naturalized or normalized ”, he points out. Arciniegas.
Likewise, he explained that “pedagogical practices will not be different if we continue to think that the presence of disability in the classroom makes us inclusive, these spaces are opened with the intention of reflecting on our conceptions, ideas, thoughts and concepts; because the rest, what worries us so much, the technique or strategy that I must use, the format that I must use, the type of curriculum that I must generate, among many other urgencies, will come in addition ”.
The teacher indicated that initially the program was intended only for ninth-cycle students, but little by little more people were added as professors from various institutions of all levels. The participants were not only from Cuenca, but from various cities and other countries.
It was a space for virtual meetings that was held from October 14, 2020 to February 24, 2021. In total, there were nine meetings and had the presence of very valuable people in the area of Inclusive Education.
In meeting one, the opening session, the guest was Juan Bello Domínguez, a research professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Pedagogical University of Mexico, with the topic: What is Inclusive Education?
Other speakers were Luis D'Aubeterre, from the National University of Education (UNAE), Ecuador; Mariana Aguilar, research professor at UNAM and the National Pedagogical University of Mexico; Ángel Pérez, from the University of Malaga, Spain, and Aldo Ocampo, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies on Inclusive Education (CELEI), Chile.
Also Ángeles Parrilla, from the University of Vigo, Spain; Pamela Molina, specialist in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Executive Director of the World Federation of Deaf People of Washington DC., United States, and Fernando Avendaño, of the National University of Rosario, Argentina.
The cycle was closed by Carlos Skliar, FLACSO Argentina research professor, with the topic Who is the other in education?
UDA Correspondent
