Portrayals of inclusive practices: from reality to the path towards inclusiveness in higher education at Amazon from Pará

Abstract

This paper analyzes portrayals from teacher-training course coordinators on the practices to include people with disabilities carried out at the Bragança Campus of the Federal University of Pará (Universidade Federal do Pará – UFPA). This research follows a processual approach, within the theoretical and methodological field of social representations, taking into account three constitutive dimensions: subjects, contexts, and meanings. The sources used are regulatory documents about inclusion on higher education and interviews with four coordinators of the following licentiate courses: Biological Sciences, History, Math, and Pedagogy. For data treatment, the analysis of the discourse of the collective subject is used. As a result, it is identified that the production and circulation process for social representations about inclusive practices on higher education are made of scenes of conflict, challenges, contradictions, and advances. The meanings found point towards the following as axis of inclusion: a) the development of an inclusive awareness; b) a continuous education policy; c) the redefinition of the educator´s role and work conditions in higher education. These are discourses that elicit the image of the inclusion of people with disabilities on the superior education as a something in introductory stages with a long path to be traced within Brazilian universities. Such path goes through the consolidation of public policies and the reinvention of pedagogical practices.