EXPERIMENTATION AS A CATALYST FOR INCLUSIVE, PRACTICE-BASED, AND CHALLENGE-ORIENTED EDUCATION

Abstract

This work stresses the critical role of inclusiveness, as represented by experimentation, in shaping some practices embedded in specific settings and covered in educational research while reflecting emerging arguments in the broader literature on inclusion for social learning processes. Most notably, we reflect on and discuss the role of experimental methodology as a transdisciplinary approach that can be used to study inclusivity in shifting the dynamics of education, specifically in the social sciences. It is in this particular characterisation of the dynamics of education that we discuss some works taken from the literature that support the idea that greater use of experimental methodology in education is desirable, highlighting the potential of experimental methods not only to evaluate the effectiveness of educational programmes and policies but also to explore students’ decision-making and behaviour, as well as to promote learning and inclusion. Arguably, these are exciting times in this research field due to a symbiotic relationship between education and other social fields such as economics. Education and new economic studies can establish a relationship, further emphasised in this work, when considering the pivotal role of learning and cooperation between students in fostering social inclusion. Both educational—with due pedagogical differences between school and university styles of study—and economic spheres thereby start from a mutually dependent relationship, and this entails a discussion running through typical aspects of experimental methodology in the social sciences concerning experimentation in controlled environments, the concepts of social learning and inclusion, recalling some theoretical contributions underlying inclusive education. Overall, the paper argues that experimentation can be understood as a valuable decision-support tool, which informs decision-makers on the basis of the results obtained and enables them to guide people along the path towards educational and social inclusion.