BETWEEN DIFFERENCES AND POSSIBILITIES: INCLUSION AND EQUITY IN BUILDING EDUCATION FOR ALL

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relationships between inclusion, equity, and diversity in education, viewing schools as spaces of contested meanings, rights, and possibilities for change. It aims to examine theoretical, political, and pedagogical foundations of inclusive education and the conditions needed to transform school access into participation, belonging, and learning. A qualitative bibliographic and documentary study is conducted, based on an interpretive reading of four central works — by Seabra, Gomes, Omote, and Rodrigues — in dialogue with scholarship on critical education, curricular justice, and inclusion, as well as Brazilian and international policy frameworks. The discussion addresses difference as an inherent dimension of educational experience, equity as a principle of justice, institutional barriers, and responsibilities shared by teachers, school leaders, and education systems. The chapter argues that inclusion cannot be reduced to enrollment or occasional task adjustments: it requires curricular decisions, accessibility, anti-discriminatory practices, formative assessment, and adequate teaching conditions. It concludes that education for all depends on linking universal rights with pedagogical responses attentive to students’ trajectories, without treating historical and social inequalities as natural.