Disability, Discapacidad and Inclusion

production of meanings in figurations in university contexts

Abstract

In the quest for answers about the social process of inclusion in higher education, this study aimed to analyze the senses produced on the inclusion and/or exclusion of students with disabilities, discapacidad based on the narratives of the subjects and documents researched in the academic context of the Federal University of Espírito Santo (Goiabeiras campus, Vitória) and the Veracruzana University (Xalapa campus, Veracruz, México). Norbert Elias (1993, 1994, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2014) was the theoretical basis for this research, mainly in the notions of inseparability between individual and society, and in the concepts of figuration and interdependence. Thus, in order to search for answers about this social process, this work makes use of qualitative research, and to go about this investigation, the comparative study method was chosen, being subdivided into three phases for data collection: in the first phase, a bibliographical survey on the subject was carried out in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD) of the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBCT), in the Bank of Thesis and Dissertations of the Coordination of Improvement of Personnel of Higher Education (Capes), in the Redalyc Scientific Information System of Scientific Journals of Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal and in the libraries of the two investigated higher education institutions (HEIs), totaling 51 papers analyzed; from the first phase, we draw attention to the legislation and documents about the inclusive process in the university context, as well as the enrollment rate of the target public in this research, which was determined in the second phase of the research; in the third phase, there were semi-structured interviews with university students, teachers and professionals from the two HEIs, totaling 27. At last, it has been concluded that the documents coupled with the narratives of the interviewees point Thus, it is concluded that the documents articulated with the narratives of the individuals interviewed indicate that in the last decades, especially at the end of the 20th century, we had some changes in the relations between individuals, and a new paradigm enters the inclusion debate, bringing the debate of the diversity of people. However, there is still a differentiation between the biological and the social, to define the concept of disability. These transformations are present, but do not have a direction to be defined, because the presence of students with disabilities has produced different notions about the function of university education, as a teacher. These different notions have influenced the modes of cadence in the inclusive process.