When does Inclusive Education become reality? Index for Inclusion 0-­6 and early chil­dhood educational contexts. An ecological exploratory study, through participatory ac­tion-­research, in the Metropolitan City of Bologna Municipality services

Abstract

The educational research work presented here, illustrates the path of collaboration and the network initiated among the services, agencies and territories of the Metropolitan City of Bologna Municipality, to monitor the quality of educational inclusion processes in services. This paper also describes some of the results of the first year of the research training course, carried out from December 2022 to July 2023, aimed at educators, teachers, school collaborators and pedagogical coordinators. The work, conducted using a mix-methods methodology, aimed to investigate the resources, needs and critical issues related to educational inclusion processes present in the services involved. The “Index for Inclusion” tool was used, adapting it to 0-6 contexts, and 32 focus groups were conducted within educational services to capture the reality from a phenomenological point of view as well.