School and social exclusion: from promises to uncertainties

Abstract

Over the last twenty years education policy has been characterised by a conflict between modernization and democratization, which has recently become the «struggle against social exclusion». By studying some of the more representative documents from the period of socialist government and conducting interviews with political decision-makers, top officials of the Ministry of Education and teachers, the authors discuss the new mechanisms for regulating the school system and their linkages with the phenomena of social inclusion and exclusion.