Attention to diversities and equity in the education policies of the Community of Madrid

Abstract

This article, derived from the research project, “New Education Policies and their Impact on Equity: School Management and Teacher Professional Development (PGC2018-095238-B-100),” presents an analysis of the normative documents that regulate attention to student diversity in the Community of Madrid, in order to compare it to the interpretation that some of the main educational agents make of such legislation and its application in relation to equity in education. A qualitative methodology was adopted, aiming to generate descriptive data and structuring the study in three different phases: documentary analysis of this community’s regulations on attention to diversities, in-depth interviews with education professionals and triangulation of the results obtained in the two previous phases. The concept of educational equity proposed in the Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality was taken as a reference, since it constituted the legislative framework in force. The normative analysis revealed that the principle of educational equity loses its universality-although such universality was admitted in the aforementioned Organic Law, to be simplistically associated with exceptionality, deficit and overall with special educational needs, without a prior analysis of the conditions of discrimination and inequality that affect these groups when accessing the education system, and which could be perpetuated, nullifying the effect of any educational support measure. The data collected from the interviews revealed that the attention to diversity model seems to have a negative impact on educational equity, which would align with the lack of precision and coherence with which the principle of equity is contemplated in the legislative documents of the Community of Madrid.