Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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A study of the school inclusion proposal regarding Goiás’s state network,
in the municipal district of Goiânia, Brazil – an educational public policy

Prof. Dr. Dulce Barros de Almeida
  Education School from the Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil
dubalmei@brturbo.com.br

For over three decades, we have observed prejudice, marginalization and exclusion in all their acceptations within the schools. People are stigmatized a priori for not fitting into the dominant patterns. There is depreciation of the self-esteem, annulment of the autonomy and jeopardy of the citizenship. Moreover, lies in this statement a complete inversion of values, stripped of such principles as ethics and social justice.

Therefore, we have asserted that the school inclusion, as a consequence of the transformation of our schools, represents the path to be followed in order to guarantee the unconditional right to scholarization of all people.

Our choice towards a single and qualified school for everyone, one that is both ethical and inclusive, finds in cooperation and solidarity its vital instruments to enclose each and every student within the learning process.

Boff (1999) leads us to reflect upon the impossibility of consolidating a world-wide globalized society and the arousal of a new paradigm of civilization, if we continue to marginalize and exclude. Such author also makes us ponder about the contempt aimed towards solidarity and the ideals of freedom and dignity to all human beings.               

As for Mittler (2000), the inclusive education can solely commence from a radical school reform, along with the change of the existent system and through a complete reconsideration of the curriculum, in order to reach the needs of all children. According to him, inclusion does not mean transferring the student from a special school to a regular one, for it actually represents an alteration in spirit and values for the schools and society in general, since the celebration of diversity is subjacent to its philosophy.

We understand that the governmental measures addressed towards the excluded people, despite being mostly adequate in theory, cannot, when in practice, revert, or even minimize, the educational situation of such people. The State Government of Goiás has even had difficulty in granting the disabled people with an access to basic public services, such as school, health and urban transportation.      

Susan Stainback, William Stainback and Peter McLaren (USA), Edgar Morin (France), Boaventura Souza Santos (Portugal), Jorge Larrosa and Nuria Pérez de Lara Ferre (Spain), along with Stuart Hall, Kathryn Woodward and Peter Mittler (England) are academicians who have stimulated us and shown that another model for education and school is possible, wherein all the children can cohabit and study side by side, brought together by solidarity, cooperation and friendship.

The school inclusion, specifically in Brazil, has been comprehended by the public organs as teaching policies directed mostly to the disabled people, as if they were the only ones to find themselves marginalized and excluded from the regular school system.

This understanding also presents a legal foundation, which alludes to the following statutes: Law nº 9.394/96 that establishes the Directresses and Foundations for the National Education; Decree nº 3.289/99 that regulates Law nº 7.853/99, which in its turn discourses about the National Policy for Integration of the Disabled People; at last, Resolution CNE/CEB nº 2, from September 11 th 2001, that institutes the National Directresses for Special Education in the Basic Education.  

However, it seems to us that all these legal statutes collide directly against the Federal Constitution of 1988, which guarantees to all people, and not only some, the right to education and the access to school without any discriminations.

In the State of Goiás, the dominant conception that has been built regarding school inclusion is one in which it is possible to include students with special teaching needs – NEE – in the regular school network through an specific teaching organ connected to the State’s Bureau of Education – SEE, that is, the Superintendence of Special Teaching – SUEE, which, since 1973, has had its goals and activities aimed at the disabled people.

Some doctrinaires from our country defend a complete school inclusion, unconditional for everyone, as a consequence of the transformation of the regular teaching. Among them, we can mention Prof. Dr. Maria Teresa Eglér Mantoan, from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Prof. Dr. Windyz Ferreira, from the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), Prof. Dr. Luciana Pacheco Marques, from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), and Prof. Dr. Rita Vieira de Figueiredo, from the Federal University Federal of Ceará (UFC), without prejudice of many others.

The theoretical notion that guides the works of those who defend the complete inclusion brings important conceptual matters into the debate, such as the identity, the difference and the diversity, that are inherent to the fundamental principles for the transformation of the Brazilian schools.

As a source of reference to discuss and analyze the school inclusion we used, aside from the mentioned authors, the works specifically developed by the Laboratory for Studies and Research in Teaching and Diversity – LEPED, pertaining to the thematic area of teaching, evaluation and formation of teachers in the Post Graduation Coordination of the UNICAMP Education School, managed by the Prof. Dr. Maria Teresa Eglér Mantoan, and to which we belong.  

Mantoan (1998, p. 3) proposes

[...] a true school transformation, in a way that the student is given the opportunity to learn, with the proviso that his peculiarities, needs and interests are fully respected, along with his intellectual autonomy, his rhythm and conditions of assimilation of the curriculum contents.  

Concerning the Laboratory, we are aware that it

[...] emerged from the need of congregating efforts and competences of people from different areas of knowledge, in order to plan and execute projects that seek the transformation of schools, so that they can become environments opened to differences. The intent of this research group is to discuss and eliminate educational barriers that exclude children and youth from our schools, interrupting their school trajectories for different sorts of reasons, related to the teaching and learning processes. We march towards new principles and possibilities of understanding the school education, and we search to render concrete an education for everyone, in a single school, welcoming and truly inclusive. (LEPED/FE/UNICAMP, 2002)

On October 9 th 2000, the Government of Goiás officially launched its school inclusion policy through the “State Education Program for Diversity in an Inclusive Perspective”, which was idealized, elaborated and managed by the Superintendence of Special Teaching – SUEE/SEE/GO.

This Program (1999) had as its pretext the records of services performed for the benefit of the people with special educational needs in the State of Goiás, as well as the recommendations of international, national and regional ambits that point towards an educational system focused on human diversity, the universalization of school admittance and the permanence of the student until the end of his basic scholarization.

The muniment of the Program proposes the reformation of the state teaching policy, aiming to make it more effective and up-to-date, and also adopts an inclusive philosophy of education for everyone, without any distinction, with the purpose of contributing in a significant way to the qualitative growth of the State of Goiás and, consequently, of Brazil.     

The initiative and the pretension of the SUEE/SEE to guarantee the inclusion are made evident in the following document:

Considering the inclusive philosophy as a process, we propose the gradual dissemination of the seed so that the Educational System of Goiás shall be constructed in a way that every student, regardless of his ethnics, culture, social degree, capacities and limitations, is appreciated. Free from segregative mega-structures, the human being should be comprehended as a whole, whose specific needs ought to be respected and appraised. (SEE/SUEE, 1999, p. 7)

Ultimately, the SUEE/SEE (1999) believes that

Due to this inclusive tendency, there were reforms of proposals, changes of paradigms and revision of principles, in the historical moment on which our government and society assumed together the national commitment of securing a qualified basic education to everyone, with ethics, equity and lack of discrimination. That also means putting in practice a policy of respect concerning the individual discrepancies, guaranteeing the same conditions of participation and contribution of everyone’s efficiency in the social construction of knowledge, in spite of their differences. (SEE/SUPEE, 1999, p. 7-8)

During the elaboration of the Program, the SUEE/SEE took into consideration the following legal statutes: Federal Constitution of 1988, State Constitution, Resolutions from the National and State Councils of Education, Law nº 9.394/96 that establishes the Directresses and Foundations for the National Education, State Complementary Law nº 26/98 that establishes the Directresses and Foundations for Goiás’s Educational System, National Policy for Special Education from MEC and Law nº 8.069/90 (Statute dedicated to children and adolescents).

As for the main goal of the Program, the SUEE/SEE intends to

Establish in Goiás an educational policy that takes into consideration the individual potentialities inherent to the human being, through a reform of the school’s pedagogical political projects in what regards its physical structures and human resources qualification, attending the needs proceeding from the diversity of people, so as to enable the existence of an education that is solidary, ethical, democratic and innovational, with equity and quality to everyone. (SEE/SUEE, 1999, p. 8)

In synthesis, the “State Education Program for Diversity in an Inclusive Perspective” comprised within its context ten other projects to be accomplished, as follows: “It Depends on Us” Project, “Inclusive School” Project, “Today” Project, “Remodel” Project, “Reference Units” Project, “Walking Together” Project, “Communication” Project, “Awakening” Project, “Creative Space” Project and “Prevention” Project.  

From the “State Education Program for Diversity in an Inclusive Perspective” we chose, for purposes of study and investigation, the “Inclusive School” Project, since it specifically deals with the school inclusion policy regarding the people with special educational needs in the regular teaching network. The Project also defines the inclusive school as one that is opened to human diversity, bearing the democratic principle of education for all.

In order to carry out its pedagogical proposal, the SUEE/SEE/GO (1999) understands that the following actions should be rendered concrete: eliminating the physical barriers that prevent the student from entering the classrooms and other annexes of the school; eliminating the attitude barriers from the whole school community, appealing to its sensibility; eliminating the functional barriers due to the use of pedagogical didactic material and specific equipment; finally, elaborating the Pedagogical Policy Project in a way that allows participation and preparing the team-work (directors, coordinators, teachers and administrative staff) through a process of continuous capacitation.

In accordance to the document extract below, the SUEE/SEE finds itself committed

[...] to a qualified education, pledged to the redimension of the Special Education in the State of Goiás, making bold measures possible so that the school shall become an environment where citizenship can be practiced, as well as an effective expedient to strive against the EXCLUSION of the students with special teaching needs from the educational system (SEE/SUEE/GO, 1999, p. 28)

As for the numerical data concerning the Inclusive Schools of Reference, the SUEE/SEE began its implantation in 1999, at first in 17 schools from the capital (one of them left the Project at once) and 38 from the countryside, attending to 16,500 students. In 2001, its wideness of range stretched out to 30 schools from the capital and 285 from the countryside.

Out of the pedagogical principles that guide the school inclusion proposal, the following one deserves to be highlighted: “the transformation of the educational policy within the principles of ethics, valorization of the human being and school for everyone, enabling the formation of students from this perspective”. (SEE/SUEE, 1999, p. 25)

Nevertheless, the SUEE/SEE, despite presenting the implementation of an inclusive policy in the State of Goiás as its general goal, suscitates doubts regarding the form by which it organizes and structures itself in order to achieve its purposes.

Until 1998, the special education in Goiás’s state network used to stimulate the implantation and execution of services that were segregated to the disabled students, such as the ones from public or private schools, special classrooms and assistance halls, among others. Yet, in spite of all the changes that took place since the inclusion policy, the people with severe disability, due to their specific conditions, are still incited to remain in special schools.

The organizational structure of the SUEE in the SEE/GO is disentailed from the Superintendence of Elementary and High School, as well as from the ones of Professional Teaching and Continuous Education at Distance.    

Each Superintendence has a private structure to the development of its programs. This condition hampers the articulation and interaction among them, since the increasing farness between the Superintendences contributes to the fragmentation of their respective programs, specially the ones related to regular and special teaching. Moreover, the development of the Goiás’s educational model placed the Regular Teaching and the Special Teaching in parallel tracks, instead of converging ones.  

The creation of a unified educational system, however, is a prerequisite to the effectiveness of the school inclusion; also, in order to render the unification concrete, it is essential to alter the organizational structure of the SEE/GO.

Another hindrance that cannot be ignored is the fact that, since its creation in 1973, the SUEE has subjected itself to the directresses issued by the Special Teaching Bureau of the Ministry of Education – SEESP/MEC – in the design of obtaining capital investment for the development of its programs.

This subjection constitutes a complicating element to the fusion between the regular and special teaching within the state’s education network, for the SEESP/MEC defends, in its muniment (1995), the total and partial integration of the students (as the model for educational organization), instead of a school opened to differences.

The school integration defended by the SEESP/MEC focus as its priority the students that, despite being disabled, are capable to take up with the regular school in its traditional models. The effort to be accepted in the school derives basically from the student. It all depends on him, who therefore becomes the sole responsible for his educational destiny, whereas the school remains fixed upon its exclusive purposes.

The majority of the experts involved in the education of disabled students, in both local and national ambits, believe that the modified, evolved and adapted version of the special teaching guarantees the inclusion of students that bear less compromising disabilities into the regular educational system. They also believe that the displacement of experts from the especial schools to the regular ones guarantees the inclusion of the disabled student in the regular classrooms.  

There is no controversy, thus, concerning the transformation the regular school needs to face that it might embrace all the students. But it just so happens that the inclusion process demands changes in the regular teaching, in order to comprise every student, with or without disability, who were excluded from school for not being able to meet with its requirements.

In view of such circumstances, we have inquired if a school inclusion policy, proceeding from the Superintendence of Special Teaching – which finds itself unbound from the organization and structure of the regular school system –, is capable of transforming the practices of the regular teaching in a way that truly heeds the meaning of school inclusion.

We have carried through a qualitative investigation of reflexive-descriptive approach, for we understand that such methodological option, according to André and Ludke (1986), allows the search, the finding and the interpretation of facts; also, it values the induction and takes into consideration the components of a situation in its interactions and influences.

We have also accepted one of the demands of the qualitative investigation, according to which the world is to be analyzed from the perspective that nothing is trivial and everything has enough potential to put together a clue, so as to establish a clearer comprehension of the object under study (Bogdan e Biklen, 1994).

Due to its peculiarities, said study claimed the participation of several organs from the SEE, responsible for the state network’s school inclusion policy, such as the Superintendence of Special Teaching – SUEE, the Superintendence of Elementary School – SUEF, the State Council of Education – CEE, the Metropolitan Sub Secretary ship of Education – SUME, and the directors, coordinators teachers and students within the regular elementary schools from the capital that have become Inclusive Schools of Reference – EIR.    

For the purpose of our investigation, we selected 40 classrooms out of the 16 Inclusive Schools implanted back in 1999, all of them systematically followed, supported and evaluated as per the orientation and the directresses from the SUEE/SEE.  

These schools are located in urban and marginal sectors of the city and they attend to students with special educational needs – mainly the people with some sort of disability – in the Infantine Education, Elementary School and Youth Education classrooms.    

We did not established primacy upon any grade, level or shift, and we confined ourselves to the indications and suggestions given by the schools.

As for data gathering tools, we simultaneously used observation techniques, questionnaires, interviews, document analysis, photographs and information obtained through informal meetings.

Furthermore, we have raised particular intelligence on national, state and municipal laws in what regards education and, more specifically, special education and school inclusion, along with international recommendations related to the education of people with special teaching needs within the regular educational system.

The quantitative data was enclosed in our study because we believe, like Bogdan and Biklen (1994), that it provides descriptive information concerning a population served by a private educational program and, as we have verified, it opens new paths for exploration and engenders different inquiries.  

At last, the analysis and interpretations of such data were effectuated in light of new theoretical-methodological and multi-referenced approaches, which lead to great educational innovations such as the opening of the schools to differences and other paradigms that lay the foundation of a single school for everyone.

Throughout this study, the reality that we witnessed, read, discussed and interpreted ushered us to a context in which the ancient mingles itself with the modern in the name of an education for all, in conformance to the inclusive perspective.

The SUEE/SEE defines “included students” as those people with special educational needs (NEE), towards whom the Inclusion School Proposal is aimed.  

However, along with Lajonquière (2001, p. 50), we defend that there is no real difference between disability and special teaching needs, for “the deficit is a lack to be suppressed by reeducation or rehabilitation, whereas the necessity is a lack to be satisfied with education”. So the names are changed, but the ideas remain the same.   

We clarified that this category of students is determined by the SUEE, which also repasses it to the schools. Such organ hence fixes the identities a priori and prescribes an educational attendance apart, even though everyone has a seat in the regular classrooms. It seems to us that the SUEE still binds itself to the concept of normalization and insists in categorizing the students, thus causing the included students lists to be inevitable.

We think that to elect any given identity as a pattern is to allow such identity to become a homogenization force in the schools. As stated by Silva (2000, p. 83):

To fix a certain identity as the rule is one of the privileged forms of hierarchizing the identities and the differences. The normalization is one of the subtlest process through which the power manifests itself in the field of identity and difference [...] Normalizing means attributing to this identity all the positive characters as possible, in face of which all the other identities can only be evaluated in a negative way. The normal identity is natural, desirable and unique. Its force is so great that it is not even acknowledged as “an” identity, but as “the” identity.  

In our opinion, the categorizations of students based on rules and patterns find support in the modern thought, which, according to Azevedo (2001), tried to fit the world into a deterministic and legal model, the only one to explain diversity with grounds on unity – mechanical atomism.

Following the modern pretexts, the School Inclusion Proposal defines itself as an innovation, yet it is founded upon a conception of the subject and of the world that can be refuted.

Marques and Marques (2003) assert that the modern thought grasps the disabled man as one who clings to the dichotomy of right and wrong, good and bad, normal and abnormal, and that the isolation constitutes a widespread practice in the treatment of normality deviation.   

The differences, which we perceive as inherent to the human condition for their uniqueness and singularity, were apparently mistaken by inequalities in the Inclusive Schools of Reference.

Figueiredo (2002) believes that differences are desirable, since they not allow, but also enrich and amplify the identification/differentiation processes; inequalities, on the other hand, produce inferiority, as they imply relationships of exploitation. Whereas the differences reconcile themselves in cooperation, the inequalities generate competition.

In our judgment, the conceits and explanations concerning the included students, as provided by the SUEE, make evident the categorizing features of the state network’s School Inclusion Proposal, as well as induce discrimination.

Therefore, the Proposal expresses by inference that embracing everyone in the schools, as a fundamental principle, means the presence of all the students, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional and linguistic conditions, in the same educational environment – the classrooms – however subdivided into categories, such as one for regular students and another one for students with special teaching needs.  

If the notion by which the diversity of schools is wrought in the cognizance of differences had been duly assimilated, the state network’s School Inclusion Proposal would not need to regard their students with the use of categories.   

Working with the difference in its full meaning is to apprehend that the teaching, pedagogical resources, methodology, curricular proposal and the evaluation of learning should benefit everyone in the classroom, and not just some students – for being categorized as included – , thus becoming paradoxically privileged.   

A lot of the times, there is no attention paid towards the fact that when defining and classifying the students with special educational needs, as well as assigning them identities a priori, one puts the latter in the position of an object, and unavoidably guides them to assume the identities that were bestowed upon them.   

The diagnosis, included lists, devices of any nature and the differential recommendations end up becoming legitimate and indispensable to the maintenance of the identity that was both fixed and imposed from the outside.

Mantoan (2002, p. 87) makes the following statement:

The student within the inclusive school is another person, one that lacks a set, permanent, essential identity. This student conglobates a diversified group of identities, before a self who is not always the same, secure and coherent, but a changeable self, each against we can confront and identify ourselves temporarily. Therefore, such as a word does not correspond exactly to the thing it represents or its definition, the person does not become mixed up with his identity.         

Anent to this information, Hall (1999, p. 21) observes: “given that the identity changes accordingly to the way in which the person is interpellated or represented, it is not automatic, but can be acquired or dispersed.

Hence, in spite of its inclusion purpose, the Proposal goes right into the trap set by inclusion itself, as warns Silva (2000, p. 82):

The affirmation of identity and the branding of difference always imply including and excluding operations [...] The identity and difference translate themselves, thus, into declarations about who belongs and who does not, who is included and who is not. To affirm the identity is to delimitate boundaries and to make distinctions between what stays inside and what should be kept outside.

We consider that, when going over the regular teaching directresses, via Proposal, the SUEE accomplishes the task that is supposed to be fulfilled by the regular school. In other words, it is the regular teaching school itself, along with its direct and indirect members, which should build viable means and alternatives in order that all its students, without any discrimination, are able to benefit from the scholastic opportunities then offered.   

As declared by Mantoan (2000, p. 7-8), the schools that are opened to diversity are the ones

[...] in which all the students feel respected and owned in their differences, or even better, they are schools that are not unconcerned towards the differences. When referring to these schools, we are dealing with educational environments characterized by a quality teaching, which do not exclude or categorize the students in groups wantonly defined through school performance profiles or standard evaluations, and also do not admit the dichotomy between regular and special education. The schools for all people are inclusive schools, where the students work together in the regular classrooms. These educational environments defy the learning possibilities of all students, just as the pedagogical strategies are adequate to meet the skills and needs of everyone.

The dichotomy of teaching between the regular and special categories causes the regular schools, by resignation, to avoid confronting the challenge of working with the differences and, as a consequence, it prevents them from better qualifying their work so as to attend the diversity that makes itself present in schools.   

Bringing together the ancient and the modern, the Inclusive Schools of Reference, although created in the Proposal as special units, were chosen in their majority from those who had already been enclosing students with NEE in their special classrooms. This hybrid contexture is typical of educational policies that do not break with the old, but rather juxtapose antique solutions with modern ones.

Still today, in their greater part, the regular schools keep quiet before the manner in that exclusion is implemented, dominated as they are by the modernity paradigm. And even when giving away physical space to the students with special needs, they cannot claim themselves inclusive, for increasing the number of registrations offered to disabled students does not necessarily mean advancing towards a qualified school for everyone.      

The verification that there was no inner modification within the schools reputed as inclusive and referential in what concerns their organization, structure and functioning, so as attend all the students, induced us to discern that an educational policy with such way of thinking and achieving inclusion – wherein the special teaching penetrates into the regular teaching with directresses, orientations and adaptations of every kind –, belongs to an ideation that prevails not just in the school system of Goiás, but nearly the whole country.    

In our estimation, this insight is backed up by the Declarations of Salamanca (1994), which textually accept and orientate school inclusion through the special education.  

Skliar (2001, p. 17) asseverates that “the inclusive school appears to be a new focus on especial education, rather than on education in its whole. The movement develops towards the regular school, instead of from it”.

Both the organizational structures from MEC and the SEE/GO follow the dichotomy between regular and special teaching. We have failed to notice amidst them any articulated or aggregated effort in behalf of all the students. In fact, such as the SEESP/MEC only debates the school inclusion in national scale, thus secluding the other Secretary ships, the SUEE/SEE restricts its debate to the regional scale, in a behavior that turns out to be just as a insulating.

This policy that encourages the transposition of the services offered by the special teaching into the regular one, along with the incorporation of the professionals, resources and techniques, wrongfully conceives the special education as the only way in that the student can be adapted to the regular teaching.

We ponder that we can lead the schools to improve their techniques with no interference from the special education, complied that their rigid and selective structure is modified and the differences appreciated. Therefore, sustained by educational policies, the schools would finally be able to break through the conservative pedagogical model that controls them and declare war against discrimination and exclusion.

The School Inclusion Policy of Goiás, as we see it, has served as a pretext to validate the services rendered by the special teaching, since it has not yet been assumed as “a new paradigm for thought and action, in a sense as to include all the individuals from a society in which diversity is becoming more of a rule than an exception” (STAINBACK e STAINBACK, 1999, p. 31).

The notion of “standard student” still invigorates among the schools, even in the ones that consider themselves inclusive. In order to invert such situation, it is necessary to take the difference as a parameter for their reorganization, no longer establishing equality as the rule.

As a matter of fact, the policies whose preparation occurs remotely from the reality of the schools tend to generate homogenizing and gauging practices, which belong to a mechanician and reductionist view of school, thus diametrically opposed to the inclusive ideals of education.  

The inclusion proposal from the SUEE/SEE, grounded upon said view, had the positive effect of showing the schools that it was necessary to take measures before the negligence and indifference of the regular teaching towards the students who, despite belonging there, were nevertheless refused from its classrooms.  

The intervention put into practice by the SUEE/SEE, when transferring the students from the special schools to regular ones, provoked uneasiness and insecurity amidst the regular educational environment. In their turn, these feelings denounced the selective and exclusive mechanisms the regular teaching has developed throughout history.  

By the way, the regular teaching in Goiás has passively accepted all the directresses and orientations issued by the SUEE, possibly because it feels itself incapable of thinking and accomplishing an education for all people, unlike what is commonly ministered.

We consider and believe that every educational deed should have as its axles the acquaintanceship with differences and the learning as a rational and participative experience that makes sense to the student, for it contemplates his subjectivity despite being collectively built in the classrooms.   

We hold the opinion that, ever since the implantation of the proposal, the SUEE/SEE should have interfused with the regular teaching. Since that did not occur, a great opportunity for rendering concrete a truly inclusive project was lost.

In our view, the Proposal could not re-signify the pedagogical practices of the inclusive schools as part of a state educational policy, which aspires for the school transformation and, consequently, education for all people.  

We then perceive that a game of interest has been implicitly established between the regular and special teaching. The first one, so as to remain the same, admits the influences of the latter, which, in order maintain the proposal, deludes itself with the acceptance from the first.

Mantoan (2001) sheds light upon this sort of game and states that the special education protects itself, when fearful of a radical school change, by catching hold of the inclusion as a matter of its competence. On the other hand, the regular teaching deliberately omits itself when it comes to inclusion, so that it might avoid a general review of its practices and its transformation, thus conceiving the inclusion as a problem of the special teaching.       

In order to keep itself from offending the constitutional precepts, the SUEE should be transformed in an educational sector responsible for the articulation and integration with other public and private organs in the general guiding of students, with or without disability, towards the most various specialized treatments.  

Such sector could also dedicate itself to researches in the educational area, therefore enlightening even further the paths of school inclusion.

Our studies lead to the affirmation that everything was conscientiously planned and executed by the SUEE/SEE, without its realizing that it is usually left to the schools to create their own tactics so as to assimilate an innovation strategy, despite the whole plastered configuration that subsists around it. Through such perspective, the cultural transformation of the regular schools, brought to pass in the name of a school innovation strategy, does not seem to have had the desired results even in the ones that adhered to inclusion.

We figure that when the teachers recognize themselves as cultural subjects, as well as education mediators and catalysts, and finally take upon themselves the challenge of articulating the culture of their students with the school knowledge, all this tutelary attitude of the State regarding teachers and schools will become unnecessary, for there would be, as a consequence, the blazing demonstration that the educational innovation had begun to be woven from the inside, instead of simply being absorbed from the outside.       

Yet the Brazilian public policies, be it from the municipal districts, states or federation, when conceiving the inclusion in their directresses, projects and orientations, they neutralize the inclusion challenges by accommodating both the regular and special teachings; they do not denunciate the school inclusion that results from the pedagogical and administrative organization of the regular teaching; they fail to amplify the concept of inclusion and restrain the innovation to the insertion of some students into the regular schools and, even so, only a few; they create an impasse between the regular and special teaching, but keep on favouring the school integration; they differentiate, by use of a mistaken designation (inclusion), the students, classrooms, teachers and curriculums, thus labeling them; they support themselves in the normalization and fixation of identities, for they work with categorized types of students (special and normal) and teachers (specialized and not specialized); they stimulate the guardianship from the central organ upon the teachers, schools and directors, consequently taking away their autonomy and using strategies that disguise the real purposes of the truly inclusive proposals and projects.    

If the current situation of education in Goiás, which under the pretext of inclusion ended up creating three different schools (regular, special and inclusive), is ever torn into pieces, we will have in this and other educational networks the possibility of building a single teaching modality that will welcome all the students, therefore defying the school education to revise its current thought and actions.

We agree that to render concrete the inclusion, as it is supposed to be done, constitutes a great challenge, since it involves changes in the conceptions of society, human being, education and school. Modifying conceptions once they have already been radicated and crystallized under the aegis of a another education model is not an easy or simple task, mainly when these modifications aim to benefit people that have been historically marginalized, excluded or treated unfairly by the society and – as a corollary to this – the school itself.

We understand that it is necessary, even today, to continue on investigating this and other teaching networks that claim themselves as inclusive or in the process of becoming it, so that there can be contributions in the form of reflections and analysis upon inclusion, seeking that it no longer keeps on being practiced in Brazil just as a fragment of the special teaching policy.

Our intention, thus, when fulfilling this study, was to offer the responsible persons for the School Inclusion Proposal – as an educational policy from the state network of Goiás – some information that suggests the execution of a critical review, in a different theoretical-paradigmatic perspective.  

                  Ultimately, we perceive that the school inclusion theme is yet too complex. Even outside of Brazil, it has been understood and practiced in different ways. There has not been a consensus upon the subject so far, and we agree with the British authors when they state that  

Inclusion, exclusion and disability are not uniform categories. These papers do not offer a coherent development of ideas which move in a linear progression towards a unitary perspective on these key factors. Each analysis has been shaped by historical, cultural, global and contextual influences. This provides both the complexity and challenge to all who venture into this particular area of research. (Armstrong; Armstrong and Barton, 2000, p.1).

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