Writing the difference. Gender, diagnosis, and language in school documents: a transformative perspective in special education teacher training

Abstract

The growing centrality of individualized planning in inclusive school contexts requires a critical reflection on the role that language plays in the construction of differences. This study investigates the intersection between educational diagnosis and gender, exploring in particular the implicit discursive forms that run through personalized school documents (PEI and PDP). The research is divided into two phases: a qualitative analysis of twenty school documents from lower secondary schools and a training experiment conducted with 124 teachers in training for support, within the Specialization Courses for Educational Support. The workshop, inspired by the vygotskian historical-cultural perspective and the pedagogy of differences, used narrative, reflexive and discursive techniques to activate a transformative process in the participants’ representations. The data were collected through a pre-post questionnaire, a logbook and two final focus groups, analyzed according to the model of thematic analysis and the analysis of educational discourse. The results highlighted the systematic presence of gender stereotypes in the documents, with different discursive traits for males and females, and a significant change in the professional postures of the students, who reformulated the diagnosis in a relational, dynamic and non-labeling way. The laboratory proved to be a generative space for the critical deconstruction of educational language, promoting awareness of the performative power of the word and the possibility of a more equitable, plural and responsible school planning. Finally, the study proposes a renewed training model for teachers, capable of combining an inclusive perspective, pedagogical care and discursive competence.