7 BARRIERS TO LEARNING AND PARTICIPATION - ECONOMÍA - 2025

The barriers to learning and participation are all those pitfalls and difficulties for students to learn concepts, integrated into the educational community and be able to participate and interact inside and outside.

These barriers can be of all kinds: social, cultural, material, attitudinal, etc., and arise from the circumstances and social and economic problems that affect the lives of individuals.

Therefore, they extend to the school context, presenting problems or "disabilities" in the interaction between students, with teachers and institutions, reaching even further, to social contexts.

It is understood then that the barriers to learning and participation transcend the merely educational sphere, so they also affect and affect teachers, administrative personnel, the family and the State.

The concept was introduced in 2002 by Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow, as a subject of study within the so-called inclusive education, which aims to take into account the learning needs of the most vulnerable.

In order to overcome these barriers, an evaluation by the educational center is necessary and essential and to create coherent inclusive policies that facilitate processes, provide sufficient budget and follow-up on practices, in order to constantly improve and eliminate these obstacles.

Inclusive education

To understand and apply the term inclusive education, it is necessary to assimilate and admit that each individual is particular and unique. In addition to this, take into account the social and economic environment (the context), which has a very important influence, so the latter has to be taken into account when implementing pedagogical strategies.

For example, a school in a middle-class area in a city cannot implement the same strategies as a rural school whose students are from a low social stratum and whose parents are likely to have a poor educational level.

In general, contextual factors must be considered first, but then social, individual and personal factors must also be assessed to determine the different types of barriers.

Main barriers to participation and learning

1- Methodological and practical barriers

They are directly related to the teaching work, they are all the adjustments, planning, implementation, use of resources, strategies, organization that the teacher must carry out so that all students learn considering their characteristics and conditions. If the teacher does not carry it out then it is a methodological or practical barrier.

2- Socio-economic barriers

Here the economic level comes into play, the material deficiencies that the student may have. For example, not having enough money to buy teaching materials, to buy the uniform and even to eat properly.

Other socioeconomic factors that can establish barriers may be the distance between the home and the educational center, which involves the difficulty of getting around, the need to get up early or take a long time to return, the fatigue that this implies, etc.

Also take into account the difficulty of developing activities outside the classroom: access to libraries, access to the Internet, the possibility of meeting to do group work, to investigate various sources, etc.

3- Attitudinal barriers

In this area, a series of perverse practices can be included, widely disseminated in recent years and that do not discriminate socioeconomic or geographical level.

It is about rejection, segregation and exclusion. We are talking about the popular “bullying”, a term in English that has spread as much as its own practice.

In all school communities there has been a natural segregation at any time in history, carried out among the students themselves and even due to wrong practices and prejudices on the part of teachers.

Thus, segregation by race, by economic status, by physical appearance, by different types of characters or attitudes, or by greater or lesser intellectual qualities or abilities to learn, has been seen at different times.

But this age-old problem has become chronic, endemic, and increasingly cruel and difficult to eradicate.

4- Infrastructure Barriers

Educational buildings often do not have the ideal conditions to facilitate learning and inclusion.

It can be mentioned from dilapidated buildings, with bad lighting or poor hygiene conditions, to the lack of necessary conditions to facilitate access to students with disabilities or special needs.

Mention may also be made of the scarcity of materials for research and experimentation and the geographical problems for access to the site (remoteness, poor communication routes, poor, expensive or scarce means of transport, etc.).

5- Practical barriers

These barriers and the responsibility to overcome them correspond more to the educational system and it is, perhaps, where the greatest emphasis and study has been placed to combat them.

It has to do with the design of curricular programs that are versatile, flexible and adaptable to each school community and even to each individual in particular; methodological practices that enhance the capacities of students, modernization of school curricula, administrative and evaluation changes, etc.

6- Communication barriers

Within these barriers we can mention the quality of communication between students and teachers: speaking in understandable language, being assertive, motivating and empathic with the student.

It also has to do with the amount of communication: having time for everyone and giving everyone what they need, since it is not the same for everyone. Adapt the content to each case, advance at a relevant pace, etc.

They are also related to the needs of the students, from a communication in an indigenous language if it is the one the student speaks, knowing Mexican sign language if the student is deaf, knowing and communicating in Braille if the student is blind, knowing create and implement Communication Boards if the student has a condition that prevents him / her from communicating orally or through sign language…

7- Sociocultural barriers

It is well known that education goes beyond the walls of the classroom and must be an interdisciplinary work between the school, the family and the State.

In this case, the barriers appear in many forms, such as the family's difficulty to participate and help the student in learning, due to lack of time, eroded family relationships or lack of motivation. There may also be language barriers (foreigners, indigenous, etc.).

On the other hand, the few or in some cases non-existent State policies to facilitate learning, bring poles closer together and bridge social and cultural gaps in society could also be included.

References

1. Miguel López Melero. Barriers that prevent inclusive school. Some strategies to build a school without exclusions. Recovered from ciequilmes.com.
2. Bertha Esperanza Monroy Martin (2015). Universal learning design. Recovered from tecnoayudas.com.
3. Juana Méndez Pineda and Fernando Mendoza Saucedo. Eliminating barriers to inclusion and participation in the UASLP. Presentation at the XI National Congress of Educational Research. Mexico. Recovered from comie.org.mx.
4. Inclusive education. Recovered from es.wikipedia.org.
5. Inclusive education. Equal in diversity. Recovered from ite.educacion.es.
6. Contextualize to transform education. Recovered from contextualizarparaintervenir.blogspot.com.ar.
7. Glossary of Special Education. Recovered from esducacionespecial.sep.gob.mx.