ABSTRACT

This article critically analyzes the representation of standardised assessments in Spanish educational policies, particularly in the current Spanish education law (LOMLOE), in reports on the state of the Spanish educational system (2020–2023), and through the voices of teachers working in schools with special difficulties and their implications for these types of schools. Employing Carol Bacchi’s What is the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach, the study questions the assumptions underlying these assessments, including claims of neutrality, linear improvement and universal applicability to address inequalities. The results reveal that standardised assessments are presented as indispensable tools for diagnosing and improving equity and quality. However, this representation neglects the systemic challenges faced by vulnerable schools. Furthermore, the study highlights a mismatch between diagnostic objectives and the capacity of disadvantaged schools to implement the recommended changes. It criticises how these policies risk perpetuating inequality by imposing rigid frameworks ill-suited to local realities and reinforcing deficit narratives about marginalised schools. It concludes by advocating for reconfiguring standardised assessments to emphasise contextualised and inclusive approaches that address the specific needs of schools in vulnerable contexts. This research contributes to global debates about equity, accountability and the broader implications of standardised assessments for education policy.

ABSTRACT

This article critically analyzes the representation of standardised assessments in Spanish educational policies, particularly in the current Spanish education law (LOMLOE), in reports on the state of the Spanish educational system (2020–2023), and through the voices of teachers working in schools with special difficulties and their implications for these types of schools. Employing Carol Bacchi’s What is the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach, the study questions the assumptions underlying these assessments, including claims of neutrality, linear improvement and universal applicability to address inequalities. The results reveal that standardised assessments are presented as indispensable tools for diagnosing and improving equity and quality. However, this representation neglects the systemic challenges faced by vulnerable schools. Furthermore, the study highlights a mismatch between diagnostic objectives and the capacity of disadvantaged schools to implement the recommended changes. It criticises how these policies risk perpetuating inequality by imposing rigid frameworks ill-suited to local realities and reinforcing deficit narratives about marginalised schools. It concludes by advocating for reconfiguring standardised assessments to emphasise contextualised and inclusive approaches that address the specific needs of schools in vulnerable contexts. This research contributes to global debates about equity, accountability and the broader implications of standardised assessments for education policy.

ABSTRACT

Using meta-ethnographic synthesis, the present article asks if schools in rural areas fulfil an educational function in the interests of rural community sustainability. It identifies some positive features and causal mechanisms, but also some conditions that seem to be destructive towards this function. They appear to be due to decentralisation, school choice and market accountability (i.e. commodification) encouraging school leaders and teachers to select and teach content to enhance the performance of individual pupils on official examinations, and by this to attract and satisfy new school consumers, even if this may work against not in the interests of local populations and rural community sustainability. The research thus questions the common understanding expressed in research about schools in rural areas as institutions that form a ‘social glue’ in their communities. Market accountability undermines this. Despite different possible logic-of-action towards competitive pressures, and despite working in schools with very different positions on local education markets, the logical and predominant teaching response is for content selection and delivery to enhance individual performances and meet consumer ambitions for a school system that operates through the exchange of capital and can enable an escape from local communities.

ABSTRACT

This study employs the capability approach (CA) to explore the long-term significance of children’s digital practices at home during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Specifically, it aims to understand the digital skills or “functionings” acquired by children during the lockdown, the extent to which all children had equal opportunities to develop these skills, and the broader implications for educational equity and social justice. It draws on a qualitative study that applied a mosaic approach involving 10 children aged 6–12 years and their parents from different regions of Spain. The findings show that children honed digital functionings during the lockdown, forging autonomy to pursue activities they valued: education and learning, creativity and self-expression, and social connections. From the CA perspective, the acquired digital and educational capabilities are lasting and can enhance the children’s well-being in the post-pandemic era. The findings underscore the importance of encouraging critical reflection on the risks associated with digital engagement to enhance autonomy. Additionally, they highlight disparities in digital access and opportunities among children from different backgrounds during the lockdown, thereby calling for transformative approaches that reflect the diverse needs identified through horizontal collaboration with the communities and schools in question.

ABSTRACT

This article analyses how teachers in multigrade classrooms challenge the culture of homogenisation in teaching through inclusive and creative practices facilitated by digital media. Specifically, it presents the results of a multisite ethnographic study conducted in five rural multigrade schools, all participating in a broader project (PID2020–112880RB- I00) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. This project focuses on investigating creative and inclusive teaching practices in complex schools due to a high percentage of migrant population or because they are in remote environments across Spain. The study highlights practices that promote student participation and learning based on their needs and life experiences, reflecting teachers’ commitment to an inclusive teaching approach. Teachers acknowledge the need to address students’ lives, interests and abilities, while encouraging interactions with peers and the community to support learning in multigrade classrooms. However, these teachers also identify barriers to inclusion arising from an education system that homogenises groups of children through organizing schools by age related grade and prescribes specific curricula for each grade. These constraints seem to influence the reproduction of educational practices that overlook students’ lives.

ABSTRACT

En un mundo globalizado en continuo cambio, en el que los medios digitales están modificando a gran velocidad los entornos y espacios educativos, es importante estudiar el impacto que el uso de estos recursos genera en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Desde la consideración de la perspectiva de la participación, este estudio pone el foco en el desarrollo de prácticas creativas inclusivas a través de medios digitales con la finalidad de analizar cómo éstas se desarrollan en escuelas de especial dificultad. Desde un diseño cuantitativo se realiza un análisis descriptivo e inferencial sobre si el profesorado promueve el Control del aprendizaje a través de prácticas creativas con medios digitales. La muestra la conforman 218 docentes de Educación Primaria de centros de difícil desempeño que respondieron un cuestionario. El análisis muestra que un 70% del profesorado cuando utiliza los medios digitales busca fomentar el aprendizaje cooperativo y facilitar el aprendizaje de diferentes contenidos. Sin embargo, su uso es menor para implicar a familias y comunidad, utilizándose más en el ámbito rural. Por otra parte, el profesorado más joven, con menos experiencia docente y de género masculino, es quien preferentemente utiliza actividades con medios digitales de complejidad variada en sus respuestas, mostrando un sesgo de género. Esta realidad invita a incrementar acciones que fomenten una cultura de centro activa, participativa y creativa que genere espacios inclusivos y transformadores.

ABSTRACT

This qualitative meta-synthesis collects and analyses the multiple and many-faceted understandings, experiences, practices, and school to community or individual relationships described in qualitative research on rural education and schooling in three European national contexts (Sweden, Northern Ireland, and Spain). Our aim was to generate and present a simplifying analytic synthesising narrative about the politics, practices and outcomes for and in schools in rural areas. In all three countries, the lack of specific relevance of the school to its community through the curriculum is palpable. Instead, the curriculum tends to be performative and to transmit primarily ‘official metro-centric knowledge’, rather than a more local culturally sensitive knowledge with intrinsic value to local communities. That said, the relationship between rural schools and the communities they serve, and the space and place they occupy, still has the potential to be important, meaningful, powerful and disruptive toward dominant power relations and official knowledge.

ABSTRACT

En un contexto nacional e internacional que apuesta por la inclusión, la digitalización y la creatividad, pocos estudios han combinado el análisis de estos tres aspectos, y menos en el contexto de las escuelas rurales. El objetivo de la investigación es identificar cuáles son las percepciones del profesorado de escuelas rurales de especial dificultad respecto al uso de los medios digitales desde una perspectiva creativa e inclusiva. En este artículo se aborda un estudio realizado en la Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón como parte de un proyecto de investigación estatal I+D+i sobre Discursos y prácticas de enseñanza creativas e inclusivas con medios digitales en escuelas de especial dificultad (PID2020-112880RB-I00). Se utiliza un diseño mixto cuantitativo y cualitativo, a partir de un cuestionario elaborado ad hoc y cumplimentado por 52 docentes pertenecientes a una muestra de 29 escuelas rurales de especial dificultad (N = 69), 30 entrevistas semiestructuradas y 5 grupos de discusión con 18 docentes. El estudio muestra que solo una parte del profesorado de las escuelas rurales analizadas considera una perspectiva creativa e inclusiva en torno al uso de los medios digitales en el aula. El artículo concluye destacando las tensiones en torno a estos medios en escuelas rurales de especial dificultad. Asimismo, muestra las oportunidades que ofrecen los medios digitales en estos centros educativos desde una perspectiva creativa e inclusiva.

ABSTRACT

This article uses meta-ethnography to identify the challenges of working in solidarity with the experiences and interests of marginalised and exploited social groups. It focuses on what the main challenges seem to be, and on how to overcome them in struggles to change education in just directions by means of educational research. It is therefore a paper of interest from a methodological and a research political perspective relating to how critical researchers challenge the status quo and undermine the dominant hegemony in education and education policy in their research. A clear message from the analysis concerns the importance of understanding of the ontological class position of research for change and what to do in research in the interests of justice based on this understanding. Another message relates to the subjective and objective sides of transformative action, and a third a two directional threat towards it.

ABSTRACT

El análisis de la literatura muestra que la formación continua del profesorado se desarrolla desde un discurso dominante que privilegia la agencia de los/as productores/as de conocimiento (investigadores/as) frente a los/as consumidores/as (profesorado). Tomando como referencia la importancia del desarrollo profesional del profesorado en torno al uso de los medios digitales, el objetivo de este artículo es identificar cómo la interacción entre investigadores/as y profesorado puede influir para generar transformaciones esenciales para el desarrollo profesional orientado al cambio educativo y la justicia social. La investigación incluye un estudio basado en un cuestionario y la etnografía multi-situada (2021-2024) a través de observaciones participantes, entrevistas, conversaciones informales, análisis de documentos y etnografía virtual en ocho escuelas de especial complejidad, ubicadas en espacios rurales y urbanos del territorio nacional. Los resultados muestran cómo la interacción y trabajo conjunto entre investigadores/as y profesorado en torno al uso creativo de las TIC generan escenarios educativos transformadores que desafían la hegemonía dominante en los procesos de formación de profesorado. El artículo destaca aspectos clave como el compromiso del/a investigador/a, la reflexión conjunta entre investigador/a y la transformación en relación con el desarrollo profesional del profesorado y consecuentemente de las prácticas educativas.

ABSTRACT

En un contexto caracterizado por la transformación tecnológica, la diversidad sociocultural y la desigualdad, es de interés conocer cuáles son las prácticas inclusivas que se desarrollan con medios digitales en las escuelas de especial dificultad. Para ello, este estudio tiene como objetivo identificar cómo el profesorado de estas escuelas, ubicadas en ámbitos rurales y urbanos, incorpora las voces del alumnado a través de las prácticas de enseñanza creativa con medios digitales. Un enfoque metodológico mixto, basado en la combinación de datos cuantitativos y cualitativos, procedentes de un cuestionario a 220 docentes, y siete grupos de discusión, muestra diferencias significativas según la ubicación de las escuelas. El profesorado de escuelas rurales tiende a incorporar las voces del alumnado en mayor medida que el profesorado de las escuelas urbanas. Esta mayor o menor presencia de las voces parece estar conectada con una cultura escolar que condiciona la incorporación plena de las experiencias del alumnado. El estudio subraya la necesidad de superar el discurso deficitario asociado a estas escuelas y sugiere futuras líneas de investigación y formación docente para desarrollar prácticas creativas e inclusivas que valoren las voces del alumnado, contribuyendo así a la transformación educativa en contextos de especial dificultad.

ABSTRACT

The use of digital tools has become commonplace and is now considered normal for most people, including in education where adaptations to these changes have been made. However, access to digital media is not uniform across all populations, and there are social and digital gaps between different areas or social strata, as is evident in schools with special complexities. Technological progress should promote creative and inclusive teaching practices that encompass the processes of relevance, appropriation, control, and innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the lack of training for many teachers, as well as the lack of digital competence, availability of digital media, and connectivity for a significant portion of the population. This study aims to investigate how teachers are trained to use digital media in centers with special complexity. The authors analyze the training topics, contexts, and spaces, as well as the resources available to teachers that influence these processes.

ABSTRACT

For over three decades now, the use of digital devices and media has had a growing impact on educational and teaching practices in schools. Though ethnographic research has documented some of these effects, it has often done so from the neutral perspective of a non-partisan participant-observer and recorder-reporter of the events that unfold. The more specific objective of this paper relates to ethnographers’ involvement in research to transform how digital media and devices are used in disadvantaged schools and how interaction between researchers and teachers can influence the practices studied and the perspectives held by the teachers at these schools. By using examples of ethnographic research in disadvantaged schools in rural and urban localities on the use of digital media in teaching practices in Spain, between 2008 and 2021, this article shows how the researcher’ role in educational ethnographic research could provide insights into the transformative value of ethnographic research.

RESUMEN

Cuando la perspectiva de la educación inclusiva, desde el marco de la UNESCO, ha supuesto cambios significativos en las políticas educativas, este trabajo pretende investigar cuáles son los discursos y las prácticas llevadas a cabo por el profesorado en escuelas con un alto porcentaje de minorías y población extranjera. Se trata de una etnografía multisituada, basada en la observación participante, entrevistas y análisis de documentos en tres escuelas urbanas y una pequeña escuela rural de Aragón. Los resultados muestran discursos y prácticas de enseñanza y aprendizaje que posibilitan la participación de todos los alumnos, en línea con los principios de la educación inclusiva. Sin ignorar la existencia de tensiones en torno a las políticas de inclusión, el artículo destaca el valor de tales prácticas. Asimismo, argumenta que la agencia de estos profesores implica resistencia en un contexto que ha normalizado la exclusión de estas escuelas.