Assembling Inclusion: Infrastructure, Regime, and Coordination Practices in Chilean Educational Policy

This article offers an analysis of an assemblage of inclusion-oriented educational policies in Chile, using an ethnographic approach. We describe and analyze the characteristics of policy infrastructure as a set of rules that establish how schools should implement inclusive education for students with special education needs. The exploration of policy infrastructure allows us to show the ways in which a regime is territorialized, and the many coordination processes that emerge to maintain or deterritorialize the established policy regime. We draw on participant observation, interviews, and document analysis to describe how school practices are intertwined with policy infrastructure, which is not free from contradictions. Our main finding is that there is no one finished policy for inclusive education but rather a constantly changing policy assemblage, where diverse actors, human and non-human, are permanently negotiating their range of agency and power.