Formação inicial e educação inclusiva: um olhar para cursos de licenciatura.

Abstract

This piece of research arises from problematizations regarding teachers’ knowledge which constitute the organization of pedagogical practices in the Brazilian educational scenario. Having as locus the teachers’ initial training, it aims at knowing the possibilities of building knowledge in terms of inclusive education in licentiate degree courses at the Federal University of Santa Maria – UFSM, directing the discussion to the majors identified with the highest and lowest percentage of course offers connected to inclusive education in relation to the total academic load. In the perspective of the Systemic Thinking, the theoretical background relies on the premises of Maturana and Varela (2001) seeking to extend the focus to the relational context of knowledge building. From the methodology of Bricolage, it comprises two main analytical dimensions: the first one is directed to know the offer of formative context in terms of content and courses connected to inclusive education, having as basis the legal documents, analysis of curricular grids of the majors and syllabus, as well as interviews with managers of Higher Education Institutions in the space of the graduation dean’s office and the courses coordinations. This first dimension aims at getting to know how UFSM organizes the curriculums of the licentiate degree courses from the legal regulations and how this organization reverberates in the formative possibilities of the future teachers. The second dimension includes the undergraduate students and their relational possibilities with the formative context, presenting a general overview of the students’ profile – students who are about to conclude their major, as well as discussing the ways in which they understand their formative context and build their knowledge about inclusive education in initial formation. It has as a theoretical basis the assumptions of Tardif (2002) about teachers’ knowledge and it considers movements of empirical material production: application of structured questionnaires with undergraduate students who are finishing their major, that being 24 History undergraduate students and 11 students of Geography; and semi structured interview with four undergraduate students from each one of the courses, in order to know the knowledge building about the inclusive education throughout the initial training. As main results, regarding the first analytical dimension, we emphasized the autonomy of the higher education institution in the organization of the formative context in order to contemplate the legal regulations, as well as the way how the offer of content and courses directs the knowledge building about the inclusive education by the future teachers. Concerning the second dimension, we evaluated that knowledge construction about the inclusive education throughout the initial training happens especially in the theoretical context of the courses and in the practical experiences at the schools. We emphasized that the possibilities of knowledge building about the inclusive education in the licentiate degree courses are constituted by the historically constructed conception which allocates the individuals who are target of Special Education the discussions relevant to the inclusive processes, holding the field itself responsible for the development of “inclusive” pedagogical practices. Thus, both in the scenario of the practice when in the academic background, the speech of lack of preparation is reinforced for the teaching performance in inclusive contexts, as well as the concept of difficulty centered in the individual of (non) learning and not in the relational possibilities which are offered.