Inclusive Teaching, defined as quality education for all, is an authentic educational orientation—an approach to teaching and interaction that enables every student to access lifelong learning, respecting each individual regardless of any difficulties or certified disabilities.
By formulating innovative pedagogical actions, the goal is to break away from traditional, predominantly transmissive teaching methods and to experiment with active learning experiences, innovative paths, and immersive activities. These approaches help overcome the idea of a single way of teaching, responding instead to individual needs and the uniqueness of every person. This inclusive approach requires a change in perspective—one that embraces heterogeneity and considers variables such as learning styles, strategies, emotional needs, social relationships, and environmental contexts.
In a context marked by multiple cultures, inclusive action processes emerge to ensure every student’s right to learn through communication and democratic participation. Talking about inclusive teaching therefore means adopting an educational approach that guarantees the right to education for all, acknowledging students’ cognitive styles and their cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic differences.
With the introduction of the ICF (International Classification of Disability and Health), scholars adopted a new interpretative direction—shifting from an individual-needs perspective to a social and functional one, focused on how a person operates within their environment. This shift has had a positive impact on students’ learning processes and on teachers’ instructional strategies aimed at ensuring proper inclusion. It marks a paradigm transition—from a linear, rational perspective to one capable of addressing the complex phenomena of real life.
Today, in Italian schools, there are students with differences—some visible, others less apparent—of which we are often unaware. Using functional anthropological models such as the ICF, we recognize that individuals differ from one another across numerous dimensions: physical characteristics, competencies, social participation, social contexts—from family types to religious, cultural, social, and economic environments—and within personal, identity-related, and emotional-psychological frameworks that define each individual.
Understanding, studying, and valuing all individual differences among both students and teachers enriches the principle of equality and justice with fairness and equity. True social justice will be achieved only when, alongside equality, we implement the principle of equity—that is, making positive differences: a kind of “reverse discrimination,” compensatory and supportive, which allows differentiated resource allocation to help every student reach substantial equality and achieve genuine educational success and inclusion.
The school can act as the true director of actions aimed at understanding the student as a whole. In the past, schools were seen as static centers where the different potential aspects of each student—from family to social to educational contexts—converged. Today, understanding students holistically makes it possible to build meaningful connections between their knowledge, experiences, and evaluations, guided by the structure of a global, transprofessional, and transcultural anthropological model such as the ICF.
The starting point is to consider students’ potential, differentiating teaching plans so that they actively adapt to the heterogeneous conditions of the learners. It would be inappropriate to offer a single learning opportunity to students with different styles of learning, yet this is often what happens. A particularly useful conceptual framework for diversifying ordinary teaching practices is Universal Design for Learning (CAST, 2011; Meyer, Rose & Gordon, 2014; Savia & Mulè, 2015), which helps design flexible curricula and diverse activities based on learning theories from cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
To achieve inclusive teaching, lessons and activities must be designed and presented through strategies that allow each student to learn content through experience and prior knowledge—using methods best suited to them. At the foundation of inclusive education lie design, collaboration, and shared participation among all actors involved in achieving common goals, because inclusive teaching is conceived and planned from the start based on individual variability. An inclusive school must be able to counter as much as possible the many phenomena that hinder individual competence achievement.
We are talking about a teaching culture oriented toward the evidence-based principle—a strong call for active, research-driven actions ensuring effective teaching and learning methods. In this sense, the inclusive approach becomes not only a model of education but also a model of innovative pedagogy, representing a functional set of methods and strategies capable of stimulating creativity and inspiration in teachers.
Roberta Tardi
Teacher of modern foreign languages, specialist and expert in inclusion processes, pedagogy, and educational psychology for specific learning disorders; expert evaluator of teaching processes; trainer in linguistic education and verbal and non-verbal communication for teachers; expert in teaching Italian as a second language, in guidance and mentoring, professional educational orientation, counseling, and career guidance. She writes for specialized journals and is the author of essays and publications.
