This article proposes a philosophical reflection about the educational inclusion of students with Intellectual Disabilities by a critical-dialectical exercise, intending to detect the contradictions of the studied phenomenon. Pedagogical concepts and practices are verified although apparently inclusive and democratic, in essence, they lead to repeatedly exclusion of these students, due to not consider their real cognitive needs, nor admit, as a necessary condition for their learning, any form of methodological or curriculum distinction. Thus, the inclusive school as it looks today is reactionary and not very democratic, while the especial school was more committed to the education of students with Intellectual Disabilities. The reversal of this scenario requires an inclusive school that reaffirms a political commitment, rescuing the know-how of the special methods, without giving up its legitimate fight against social and educational segregation practiced before.
Especial and Inclusive Education; Historical and Critical Pedagogy; Students with Intellectual Disabilities