Inequity and school inequality: An analysis of the conceptions of school education management teams

Abstract

The research work addresses the school leadership exercised by different members of school management teams in Chile in order to know, from their experience, the conceptions regarding vulnerability and socioeconomic inequality. Two types of instruments were applied 1) a survey to characterize the activities and training of management teams in issues related to inclusion, segregation and social justice and 2) semi-structured interviews with professionals from management teams. The results indicate a low formal training in these topics and a scarce development of reflexive-formative actions in this line, as well as conceptions oriented to describe vulnerability in terms compared to other realities, a conception about teachers who should work in segregated educational spaces and some tensions especially referred to diversity and justice in educational contexts. The findings suggest orienting the ongoing training of teachers and managers to reflective processes that allow them to act in a sense of recognition of difference and diversity.