“Turma Alfa”: a dilemática fronteira entre práticas educativas inclusivas e práticas educativas exclusivas

This paper stems from an ongoing investigation on the theme "Educating places: practices, voices and pathways of inclusive education”. This project seeks to answer, among others, the following questions: i) which processes and factors, subjects, action rationales and (institutional, local, community) partnerships contribute to building local inclusive education practices, in the views of actors involved?; ii) which (social, institutional, biographical) processes and factors stop the negative spiral of school underachievement, school dropout and early school leaving and favour the youngsters’ remobilization to learn and build successful academic pathways?The study design consists of a multiple-case study of eleven observation units in four Portuguese counties, in the context of two national Programs targeting to overcome school underachievement and early school leaving. For this paper, we selected the data collected in one of the case studies - an Education Priority Zone (ZEP) in the north of Portugal. We analysed several documents and records (Educational project, self-evaluation report, ZEP report, among others). Complementary, an unstructured interview was carried out with the ZEP coordinator. Taking into account a specific inclusive education practice adopted in the ZEP (“Alpha Class”), we discuss its inclusive promised achievements, but considering, at the same time, the potential risk of exclusion involved.