In recent years, the State and educational organizations have reinforced strategies and actions of inclusion that can contribute to ensuring the right to education for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic, cultural, physical, or cognitive conditions. Greater administrative and curricular autonomy has been granted to schools, allowing the implementation of strategic policies to deepen the quality and equity of education. Additionally, there are signs of increasing accountability among school leaders to adequately respond to the individuality of students. In this context, external school evaluation emerges as a crucial mechanism to monitor the implementation of educational policies and promote the continuous improvement of schools, identifying good practices and areas for enhancement. Since 2018, in Portugal, the third evaluation cycle of the External School Evaluation Program (PAEE) has been ongoing, emphasizing inclusive schooling and incorporating themes such as "equity and inclusion" into its reference framework.

This summary presents an ongoing Research Project aimed at understanding how both top-level and intermediate leadership implement the guiding principles of inclusive education, in accordance with current educational policies. The objective is to analyze how external school evaluation and organizational leadership potentially contribute to building a more inclusive school. This project aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Quality Education – of the 2030 Agenda, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015.

Currently, the construction of the theoretical and policy-normative framework of the phenomenon under study is underway, focusing on a literature review. The goal is to characterize the "state of the art." This process involves the careful selection and analysis of relevant literature, key authors, and legal standards related to the educational policies under study. Two scientific articles on literature reviews have been produced: one systematic review and one integrative review.

Subsequently, a case study will be conducted focusing on a School Cluster from the public network of mainland Portugal, evaluated by the Inspectorate-General of Education and Science (IGEC) in the third evaluation cycle of the PAEE. Through document analysis and semi-structured interview surveys, the aim is to identify, alongside organizational leaders, the effects of external evaluation on achieving improvements in inclusion at the planning, management, and educational action levels. The data will be analyzed using content analysis techniques, supported by MAXQDA software, to obtain valid and constructive inferences for the study. This is a qualitative, descriptive study based on the interpretive paradigm. Realist evaluation theory will underpin the theoretical and methodological framework of this project as it is particularly useful for analyzing and understanding complex interventions in social contexts where multiple bundles of conditioning variables operate.

The research project is expected to be completed within 36 months.

The goal is to contribute to the field of educational administration and policies, to academic debate, as well as to the production and dissemination of knowledge about the relationship between educational policies, external school evaluation, and school leadership in the context of inclusion.

Keywords: External evaluation of schools, Inclusion, Leadership, Realist evaluation theory.