School failure, whose failure? The transformation of the notion of school failure

Abstract

The article contributes to the discussion on the conception of “school failure”, through the revision of the literature, and shows how it has evolved, since the introduction of the notion of inclusive education. It analyzes the current literature on how it has been faced in different contexts, and in the diverse levels of the educational systems (policy design, school and classroom levels). It concludes that numerous best practices exist, and proposes that the best results are attained when an inclusive, preventive, and systemic approach is put into action, complemented at the classroom level with a risk-taking and an experimentation approach.