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

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The Pedagogy and Psychology Courses of the FIHE/MG:
Conceptions about Inclusion

Prof. Luciana Marques
Student Cristina Toledo
Master Student Fernanda Oliveira
Student Frederika Burnier
Student Gabriela Meireles
Student Juliana Inhan
Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
National Council of Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq, Brazil
Research Support Foundation of the State of Minas Gerais – FAPEMIG, Brazil
luciana.marques@ufjf.edu.br

During many years, there has been sought an understanding of school as a locus of attendance to human diversity. However, it stumbled upon teachers and psychologists graduated under the aegis of homogenizing curriculums, which hindered them from comprehending that the modernity wherein they were inserted placed them in an exclusive ideological formation, one in which the dichotomy between normal and abnormal prevailed.  

It was therefore clarified the necessity of comprehending the initial formation courses to which these professionals were submitted, in order to, along with its collaborators – university teachers, course coordinators and students –, reflect upon the heterogeneity matter that affects them.

By conceiving inclusion as a principle founded on the current nature of diversity, which necessarily contemplates all possible forms of human existence, it has been considered that being either black or white, man or woman, tall or short, rich or poor, disabled or not, are only a few of the various probabilities for being human.

Among the causes pointed out by some authors for the successive failures that seal the context of education, we can particularly distinguish the precarious and poor education that the professionals receive in their secondary education, sometimes even in the faculties. In this perspective, the teachers and psychologists have presented a restricted view of the students by disregarding the reality wherein they are inserted. The school we have today in Brazil is prepared to receive and work with students of fine cognitive capacity, who can successfully progress with, without or despite the support from the school. Nevertheless, within the Brazilian reality, we face students blemished by the social, physical, intellectual, ethnical, religious and emotional discrepancies. Under such context, it is even more vital to discuss about the present formation of our professionals in the education field.

The teachers and psychologists should secure the concrete material conditions that allow both change proceedings and access to the knowledge generally produced in the education and culture areas, thus helping the constitution of the curriculum in the school environment where they work.

Before these facts, it is believed, just as Silva (1999, p. 20-21), that

even tough the curriculum does not coincide with the culture, and even though it is subjected to the typical rules, restrictions, conventions and regulations from the educational institution, it can also be seen as a text and analyzed as a speech [...] The curriculum, just as the culture, is a productivity zone. Such productivity, notwithstanding, cannot be disentailed from the social character of the significance practices. Culture and curriculum are, over all, social relations.

The formation of the pedagogues and psychologists implies not only in the constitution of their professional identities, but also of their personal ones. Such identity should be grounded upon the knowledge derived from the curriculum, experience and pedagogical practices (PEREIRA e MARTINS, 2002).  

Considering the initial formation of the education professionals as fundamental to the constitution of this recent educational practice, it was sought to unveil the meanings of the term “inclusion” in the Pedagogy and Psychology courses from the Federal Institutions of Higher Education of the State of Minas Gerais (FIHE/MG).

Within these speeches analysis, it was taken into consideration the treatment provided to the disabled students, since the processes of exclusion and marginalization were made more visible in their education. As a reference to examine said speeches, we used the work of Orlandi (1993, 1996), who orientates himself by the European perspective, French School for Speech Analysis (SA). The SA was born in the 1970’s, with Michel Pêcheux, and it works as a discipline of interval, in control of three knowledge fields: Linguistics, Marxism and Psychoanalysis. Its full acceptation is acquired by conceiving the language itself within a historic-social process and putting both subject and meaning as parts of such process. The speech, then, is the essential conjugation of language with history, generating the impression of reality; on its turn, this notion will render possible the language analysis, regardless of its domain, as well as the reflections upon the subject and the situation in which he is placed, thus bringing forth the speech as a founding notion.      

So, according to Orlandi (1996, p. 56), “the objective of the SA is to perceive how does a text function and provide meaning, having been conceived as a linguistic-historic object”. Therefore, in the view of the author (1993, 1996), to comprehend is to make explicit the manner through which the speech creates meaning, that is, to consider the functioning of the speech in its meaning production, emphasizing the ideological mechanism that sustains it. The path for the text comprehension is to relate it to the different significance processes that occur within it, which exist due to historicity (the history of subject and meaning).

The adopted procedure was to apprehend everything that composes our discursive corpus, which is put together by academic treatises (dissertations and thesis) about inclusion from the Masters and Doctorate Programs, as well as the curriculum, of the FIHE/MG Pedagogy and Psychology courses, with the respective summary of the disciplines related to the disability and inclusion thematics; also, an interview carried through with three senior students, the Professor in charge of the Special Education and the co-coordinator of each course, all of which were addressed to through the use of pseudonyms, so as to preserve their identities.

The FIHE units that offered the Pedagogy and Psychology courses were the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Federal University of São João Del Rei (UFSJ) and Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU); the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) offered only the Pedagogy course. The data gathering from the Pedagogy courses was accomplished in the period concerning the second school semester of 2002, and it was afterwards brought up to date in the second semester of 2003, when the data gathering from the Psychology courses was finally carried through.   

Present in all the Pedagogy courses, the Special Education discipline varied in its offering criteria, establishing itself as an obligatory topic in two of the universities and as an optional topic in the remaining three. In their turn, the curriculums of the Psychology courses presented the Exceptional Psychology discipline as a common part among them, one that consists in an obligatory topic in three of the universities and an optional topic in the other.

We have observed that the Special Education disciplines searched the characterization of the disabilities, history of special education and educational aspects of the inclusion, whereas the Exceptional Psychology disciplines aimed to classify the disabilities, supply the psychometric evaluation techniques and study the rehabilitation forms. In the psychology courses, there could not be found any discipline that specifically dealt with inclusion. It then came to light a manifestation of a strong influence in the technical moulds of the disability study for the psychology, that stretches from the nomenclature of the discipline to its program, which at no moment discusses the historical treatment given to the disability or the inclusion paradigm.

Although we have found in every Pedagogy course at least one discipline that treated of inclusion, it was possible to detach from some interview clippings the intricate situation in which the inclusion thematic finds itself within the course, considering the evident dissatisfaction towards the difficulty faced by the other disciplines when regarding the subject, due to a resistance from the teachers, either for not sharing its point of view or for restraining themselves to the study of their specific working area, thus not considering the subject as one that reaches the whole educational system.

Laura, Pedagogy Student: I think that the University is composed of groups... one group supports an idea, another group supports a different one. I also believe there is a group of political insiders. So, there are teachers who are truly in behalf of this inclusion conception... on the other hand, there are teachers who argue that it is an absurd and that it should not be carried thorough.

As mentioned, the discipline that found itself more closely related to the Special Education, in the psychology courses, was the Exceptional Psychology, even though the term “exceptional” has been extinct since 1986, when the National Center of Special Education edited the CENESP/MEC Regulation nº. 69, in which appeared for the first time the expression “student with special needs”, thus replacing the expression “exceptional student”, that has been nearly abolished from the official documents since then (MAZZOTTA, 1996).

Through the reading of the interviews, it was possible to notice that there are challenges to be faced and that some of the interviewed guests, as, for instance, the teacher Leandra, could already point out the mistake concerning the nomenclature of the discipline.

Leandra, Psychology Teacher: So, whatever I say, in one way or another, I will always end up referring to this matter, won’t I? So be it... well, the official name is Exceptional Psychology, but we have been accepting suggestions for different names, since this one is horrible, obsolete and overshot.

The Pedagogy and Psychology courses of the FIHE/MG worked as instruments devoted to the reproduction of the status quo and attendance to the needs of the neo-liberal economic system. The programs from both courses did not materialize an anonymous performance field, by means of critical studies that would involve the analysis of the current ideological pretexts and reflections upon the socio-historic movements that occurred in the past.

Cristina, Pedagogy Teacher: Because it is like this... the inclusion is politically correct, but if we are to observe the educational reality before us today, the inclusion ... it is not benefic to the people, because if one pays enough attention, one will certainly come across disqualified teachers that can barely work with the so called “normal” students in the quotidian... if we are to put a child in such environment, she will always remain aside from the process, won’t she? Well, as a teacher, I have been constantly aware of that.

Marcos, Psychology Coordinator: We can create spaces to... people. But that is also complicated, since we live in a culture in which the value of the person is quite entailed to his capacity for making money and favoring others to do the same.

Marques (2000, p. 38) elucidates this idea by stating: “allied to the functionalist conception of society, lies the notion of a productive body. A disabled body is considered to be an unproductive one, upon which the power relations have immediate reach”.

Our analysis verified that the disability speeches were established in the “normal versus abnormal” dichotomy, thus delimiting the existence of boundaries between those who find themselves within the average and those who are outside of it. We have further discovered a speech of existence for the regular person, which excluded the people with disability.

According to Silva (2000, p. 83), “to normalize means to elect – arbitrarily – a specific identity as the parameter in respect to which all the other identities are evaluated and hierarchized”. It was then realized that the purpose of psychology emerged as the normalization of the disabled people’s lives, through the search for the diagnosis, treatment and cure, therefore beholding the disability as something limitative.    

Amaral (1992) indicates three myths that have been shaped around the disabled person: the hero, the victim and the hero-villain. The hero myth surfaces through the presence of attitudes and actions that cause a repercussion in the society due to a positive quality, thus annulling the fact that one is disabled. The person is thereafter noticed only in regard to that positive quality. The victim myth is built upon feelings related to pity, turning the disabled person into a “wretched soul”, worthy of the compassion of society in order to survive. At last, the hero-villain myth is the one structured around the “bandit” figure, the undesirable and condemnable behaviors, like aggressiveness. It is argued that the disability, instead of the relationships that the society establishes with the disabled person, is the one responsible for the emersion of such behaviors.

Joana, Pedagogy Coordinator: I consider disability to be everything that takes away from the individual his capacity for action and causes him to be seen from a different perspective... the ideal man, and one acknowledged as so, is a man in whom everything functions properly. But from the moment in that one of his organs stops functioning as expected, he is suddenly regarded as a disabled person.

Aline, Pedagogy Student: I believe that the disability is not that much of a hindrance, o.k.? I share this view because there is a disabled person in my home and the relationship is quite normal and friendly. We are the ones who have to handle the situation differently, but I don’t think that is the right way.

Jéssica, Psychology Teacher: Nowadays, my conception of disability is a lack of adjustment, a functioning trouble that demands an additional stimulation, in which things do not happen in a specific rhythm or moment, but nothing beyond that, right?

Paula, Psychology Student: As a person who needs a different strategy, but who will manage to do it in the same way as the other kids do; it just takes training.

In the speeches under analysis, coherently with the disability conceptions, it frequently appeared the idea of the school as a selective institution, one that is in charge of the task of classifying and selecting the subjects. Thence came the belief that it is necessary to wait for the society to become more inclusive in order to, subsequently, commence building an inclusive education.

Luisa, Pedagogy Student: After having lived through this experience, I perceive that in accordance to the kind of disability – of course there is an exception for everything, but anyway – it is necessary to come up with a specialized attendance that neither the school nor the teacher are prepared enough to provide.

Taís, Psychology Student: This matter regards the preparation of the schools in being or not able to carry out this sort of work. I believe that the issue concerning the preparation of the schools and teachers has not been properly dealt with, but, for instance, we have had a lecture here from the director of APAE (institute that works with disabled people) and she mentioned a certain school she had recently visited which would be prepared to receive her students.

We furthermore examined the dissertations and thesis from the Post-Graduation Programs in Education or Psychology of the FIHE/MG. In those programs, we looked for pieces of work – focused on the inclusion process – that had already been completed and handed over to the Institutions, so that we could grasp the meanings expressed by them.

The UFV and the UFSJ contained neither the Masters nor the Doctorate Program in Education; the UFMG offered both of them; the UFJF and the UFU presented only the Masters. On the other hand, none of the FIHE/MG made available the Doctorate in Psychology, and the only universities that presented the Masters Program were the UFMG and the UFU, although the latter had created the course in 2003 and therefore lacked a concluded dissertation.

Four dissertations were found in the Education field: one dealt with the insertion of the people that suffered from brain paralysis into the regular school; another pondered on the reading and writing practices regarding the deaf; the central thematic of a third one was the formation of teachers towards diversity; finally, the last one examined the institutionalization process in a Special Education Center from the perspective of its egresses. Yet, all of them presented a conception of inclusion that questioned segregative attitudes and customs.

From the five dissertations found in the ambit of Psychology, only one contextualized the historic treatment given to disability, thus facing the exclusion, integration and inclusion paradigms, despite the lack of a personal opinion upon the matter. Two dissertations discussed the work of Helena Antipoff, and, as for the remaining ones, the first analyzed the assistance policy towards the people with disability, while the other deliberated about the representations concerning their professionalization; nevertheless, not a single one of them debated the inclusion paradigm, for they were all concentrated upon the treatment that had been administered to the disabled people.

It was possible to certificate the existence of different conceptions in the speech of the subjects when they were asked about inclusion. The definitions provided by them demonstrated that not all were acquainted with these concepts. The meanings apprehended in their speeches allowed the identification of three discursive formations, which, according to Marques (2000), show clearly the problematic situation faced by the disabled people.

The discursive formation that places the disabled person as “deviant”, based on the reference given by the dichotomy between normality and abnormality, constitutes the discursive formation of segregation, which affiliates itself by the side of the exclusive ideology. The other, that makes the difference visible, consists on the movement of this exclusive ideological formation towards an inclusive ideological formation. Such discursive formation can be identified as the integration one. The inclusive discursive formation, which belongs to the ideological formation of inclusion, presupposes the reasoning of the subjects with grounds on their diversity.

By unveiling the meanings of inclusion in the Pedagogy and Psychology courses of the FIHE/MG, we could elucidate the dilemmas and perspectives that are present in the formation of teachers and psychologists, thus laying a foundation upon which the conceptions and speeches built in these courses can be re-signified, as well as allowing the constitution of an inclusive school and society.  

We consider, therefore, that one of the perspectives for the formation of teachers and psychologists conglobates the fact that they actuate as social agents, working with cultural diversity in detriment of a construction shaped in a system wherein knowledge is power and the social dimension is associated to the “desirable-undesirable” dichotomy. We then propose that the scholarization process should face a redefinition in meaning and purpose. Within such context, we might find the greatest plight of the teachers and psychologist’s formation, for it should be demanded, according to the words of Pereira (1983, p. 429), “the accomplishment of a new learning of values, vital attitudes, symbology and language”.

In conformance to this conception, we recommend a speech that travels beyond the educational equality, in which the subject is to be accepted and comprehended within an ethnic-cultural plurality. To do so, the school and human resources must adopt a reflexive and culturally committed practice, defending the construction of a curriculum capable of defying the speeches that make the differences evident, and promoting attendance to the cultural diversity.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

AMARAL, Lígia Assumpção. Espelho convexo: o corpo desviante no imaginário coletivo, pela voz da Literatura Infanto-Juvenil. 1992. 410f. Tese (Doutorado em Psicologia) Instituto de Psicologia da Universidade de São Paulo, 1992.

MARQUES, Carlos Alberto. As universidades na formação de professores para o ensino inclusivo.In: CONGRESSO BRASILEIRO SOBRE SINDROME DE DOWN, 3. 2000, Curitiba. Anais. Brasília: Federação Brasileira das Associações de Síndrome de Down, 2000, v.1. p. 34-44.

MAZZOTTA, Marcos José Silveira. Educação Especial na Brasil: história e políticas públicas. São Paulo: Cortez, 1996.

ORLANDI, Eni Pulcinelli. Discurso e leitura. 2 ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 1993. A linguagem e seu funcionamento. Campinas: Pontes, 1996.

PEREIRA, Liliana Patrícia Lemos Sepúlveda; MARTINS, Zildete Inácio de Oliveira. A identidade e a crise do profissional docente. In: BRZEZINSKI, Iria. Profissão professor: identidade e profissionalização docente. Brasília: Plano, 2002, p. 113-131.

PEREIRA, Sílvia Leser de Melo. A formação profissional dos psicólogos: apontamentos para um estudo. In: PATTO, Maria Helena Souza (org.). Introdução à psicologia escolar. São Paulo: T. A. Queiroz, 1983. p. 424-430.

SILVA, Tomaz Tadeu da. O currículo como fetiche: a poética e a política do texto curricular. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 1999.

_______. A produção social da identidade e da diferença. In: ___ (org.). Identidade e diferença: a perspectiva dos Estudos Culturais. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2000. p. 73-102.

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