Leadership for inclusion: perspectives from Portuguese school principals

Schools in various parts of the world still have in their agendas the improvement of the quality of school processes and students’ learning. Inclusion is one of the main schools’ concern as inclusive education remains as one of the important goals of political agendas and educational reforms internationally. For effective inclusion, It is necessary for schools to have leaderships oriented by inclusive values. Previous literature highlights the role of leadership perspectives about inclusion as a determinant of inclusive practices. Specific studies identify a set of characteristics of what should be an inclusive leader for supporting more inclusive communities. The general objective of the research presented here was to explore the perspective of three Portuguese school principals about diversity, inclusion and inclusive leadership. This study adopted a methodology of a qualitative nature. The data was collected with a semi-structured interview related to inclusive education and inclusive leadership. Three major themes were considered being them inclusive school, inclusive leader and inclusive practices. Results support the idea that school leaders are inclusive oriented even though they recognize difficulties in the operationalization of inclusive practices. Therefore, the conclusions pointed to the need to continue working for the development of more inclusive schools taking into account the leadership role in this endeavor.