SCHOOL INCLUSION: EFFECTS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION PLAN ON MUNICIPAL PLANS

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the possibilities for public policy, at the national level, to develop into effective municipal policies. Discusses the operationalization of goal 4 of the National Education Plan in the Municipal Education Plans in relation to the continuing education of teachers for school inclusion. The methodology has a qualitative approach and constitutes the content analysis of the Municipal Education Plans. The results of the research indicate that the municipalities mostly propose training directed to teachers of Specialized Educational Assistance, to the detriment of those who work in regular classrooms. Thus, it is concluded that a Plans, in general, distance themselves from the construction of inclusive educational systems, and follow a special education concept centered on the Specialized Educational Assistance.

EDUCATIONAL POLICIES; EDUCATIONAL PLANNING; COUNTIES; CONTINUING EDUCATION

Resumo

Este artigo apresenta uma análise sobre as possibilidades de uma política pública nacional desdobrar--se em políticas municipais efetivas. Discute a operacionalização da meta 4 do Plano Nacional de Educação nos planos municipais de educação em relação à formação continuada de professores para a inclusão escolar por abordagem qualitativa, analisando o conteúdo dos planos municipais de educação. Os resultados da pesquisa mostram que os municípios propõem, majoritariamente, formação aos professores do atendimento educacional especializado, em detrimento daqueles que atuam nas salas regulares, concluindo-se que os planos, em geral, distanciam-se da construção de sistemas educacionais inclusivos e seguem uma concepção de educação especial centrada no atendimento educacional especializado.

POLÍTICAS EDUCACIONAIS; PLANEJAMENTO EDUCACIONAL; MUNICÍPIOS; FORMAÇÃO CONTINUADA

Resumen

Este artículo presenta un análisis sobre las posibilidades de una política pública nacional que se desdobla en políticas municipales efectivas. Discute la operacionalización de la meta 4 del Plan Nacional de Educación en los planes municipales de educación en relación a la formación continuada de profesores para la inclusión escolar por aproximación cualitativa, analizando el contenido de los planes municipales de educación. Los resultados de la investigación muestran que los municipios proponen, mayoritariamente, formación a los profesores del atendimiento educacional especializado, en detrimento de aquellos que actúan en las salas regulares, concluyéndose que los planes, en general, se distancian de la construcción de sistemas educacionales inclusivos, y siguen una concepción de educación especial centrada en el atendimiento educacional especializado.

POLÍTICA EDUCATIVA; PLANIFICACIÓN EDUCATIVA; MUNICIPIO; FORMACIÓN CONTINUA

Résumé

Cet article analyse les possibilités d’une politique nationale se déployer en politiques municipales efficaces. Appuyée sur une approche qualitative, la recherche aborde la question de l’opérationnalisation de l’objectif 4 du Plan national de l’éducation dans les plans municipaux de l’éducation concernant la formation continue des enseignants à l’inclusion scolaire et analyse leurs contenus. Les résultats montrent que les municipalités proposent préferentiellement une formation aux enseignants spécialisés au détriment de ceux qui travaillent dans des classes régulières. La conclusion est que les plans s’écartent généralement de la construction de systèmes éducatifs inclusifs, au profit d’une conception de l’éducation en milieu spécialisé.

POLITIQUE ÉDUCATIVE; PLANIFICATION ÉDUCATIVE; MUNICIPALITÉ; FORMATION CONTINUE

School inclusion has provoked numerous debates in the field of education, triggered by the Política Nacional de Educação Especial na Perspectiva da Educação Inclusiva (PNEEPEI) [National Policy for Special Education from an Inclusive Education Perspective (NPSEIEP)], by proposing the inclusion of children with disabilities in regular schools, “without any kind of discrimination” (2008, p. 5). More than ten years after the launch of this policy, we can see, through research (Oliveira et al., 2019; Thoma & Kraemer, 2017; Baptista, 2011, 2015, 2019), how much it is still necessary to invest in teacher training processes aimed at school inclusion, both in relation to initial and continuing education.

Besides ensuring accessibility, the construction of inclusive schools depends on changes that involve ethical, political, moral principles and also pedagogical and methodological conceptions, for the organization of teaching processes that ensure the education of all. For this reason, research (Baptista, 2015; Carvalho, 2009; Kassar, 2011) is a recurring theme that contributes to problematize the scenario that leads to inclusion and the ethical and pedagogical understandings present in school inclusion policies and practices. According to Kassar (2011, p. 10), the analyses we make on school inclusion must be attentive to the calls made by the political and economic context for a “coexistence with diversity and the appreciation of concepts such as inclusion, solidarity, equity, equality”, because they often cover up “the impacts of economic policies that seek the implementation of a perfect management of modes of production”.

In this sense, we must keep a more refined look at what we do and think about inclusion, in order not to fit in with economic purposes on which the productive system bets when it comes to inclusion (Veiga-Neto & Lopes, 2007). We cannot disregard that inclusion has been a motto of contemporary neoliberalism so that everyone can participate in the economic games, including those who have disabilities and who have remained on the fringes of productivity. PNEEPEI (2008) appears in this context and proposes the inclusion of children who have disabilities, global developmental disorders, and over gifted/higher skills in regular common schools and no longer in schools and special classes. Therefore, the analyses we make on the proposals of school inclusion need to be attentive to the interests of normalization of the subject with disabilities, which are often present in their practices, preventing the processes of inclusion produce other ways of living with the other, recognizing singularities and differences.

It is salutary to emphasize, however, that school inclusion, for many decades, was conducted in our country, politically and pedagogically, under the bias of special education from a clinical and therapeutic perspective. In addition, national teacher training policies have, for a short period of time, been in favor of a type of professional training that includes special education and school inclusion. Only since 2001, with the Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Formação de Professores para a Educação Básica [National Curricular Guidelines for Teacher Education for Basic Education] (2001), a perspective of inclusive education is mentioned in regulations related to teacher training.

Basic education must be inclusive in order to meet a policy of integrating students with special educational needs into the common classes of the education systems. This requires that the training of teachers of the different stages of basic education include knowledge related to the education of these students. (2001, p. 26, own translation)

In this direction, in 2015 the National Curricular Guidelines for higher education (undergraduate courses, pedagogical training courses for graduates and second degree courses) and for continuing education (Resolução nº 2, de 1º de julho de 2015) reaffirmed the need for training appropriate to the modalities of education, including special education. Among the guiding principles of this norm is “teacher training for all stages and modalities of basic education as a public commitment of the State, seeking to ensure the right of children, youth and adults to quality education” (Resolução nº 2, de 1º de julho de 2015, p. 4, own translation). Furthermore, these Guidelines define that undergraduate courses or pedagogical training for undergraduate or graduate graduates, “should guarantee in the curricula specific contents of the respective area of knowledge or interdisciplinary, their foundations and methodologies” (2015, p. 11, own translation), also including the modality of special education.

Although these recent national regulations indicate the need for teacher training to address knowledge in the area of special education, it results that even today most teachers who work in basic education do not have any kind of pedagogical training to work with children or adolescents who have disabilities.

We can observe the fragility of the initial training for school inclusion in the Mesquita survey (2007), conducted at a public university, involving seven undergraduate courses. This researcher states that, although at first it was led to believe that the restoration of the pedagogical projects of the undergraduate courses (after the promulgation of the national guidelines for teacher training in 2001) were coherent in the light of inclusive principles, it was not what she found. The results of his research showed that training to work with the special education public was “absent in 28.6% of the courses, secondary in 42.8%, and present in only 28.6% of the total courses researched” (Mesquita, 2007, p. 181, own translation).

In this direction, Prais and Rosa (2017), when presenting analyses on the formation of teachers for the inclusion of students of special education, from research published in scientific periodicals in the period from 2005 to 2014, warn that the initial formation of teachers is focused on the course of Pedagogy to the detriment of other degrees.

In general, these researches show that the initial formation of teachers for school inclusion is a challenge to education colleges all over the country, which explains the reality we find in basic education schools, which continues to be the “non-preparedness” of teachers to teach with children who have disabilities.

Consequently, this increases the demand for continuing teacher training, since the number of children with disabilities enrolled in ordinary schools has grown significantly, and schools and teachers should not neglect the right to education. Baptista (2019) discusses this growth evidenced by the data of the school census/2016, in relation to the number of enrollments in ordinary schools, which in 2003 were 145,141 students, and in 2015 were 750,983 in the country. In contrast, enrollments in special classes and special schools decreased from 358,898 (2003) to 179,700 (2015). According to this researcher, one can recognize the positive effects of an educational policy that kept the focus on the universalization of education in the country, but he warns that “it is important to analyze the conditions of schooling, considering dimensions such as participation, support and school performance” (Baptista, 2019, p. 11, own translation).

Baptista (2011, 2019), when analyzing PNEEPEI, also discusses the role of multifunctional resource rooms that have been installed since 2007 throughout the country, reaching 90% of Brazilian municipalities in 2012 (Baptista, 2019). These rooms represent a pedagogical space for offering Atendimento Educacional Especializado [Specialized Educational Assistance] (AEE) to students who are the public of special education. They work in schools or care centers and are considered priority spaces for the development of special education by a specialized professional.

Although national policies and programs have been instituted to effect school inclusion over the past decades, and current data show that special education has grown in ordinary schools, state and municipal education systems still have a long way to go to become inclusive.

In this direction, considering the scenario of fragility in the formation of teachers to work with children and adolescents who have disabilities, we carry out, in this article, an analysis in relation to the Plano Nacional de Educação de 2014 a 2024 (PNE) [National Education Plan/2014-2024 (NEP)], especially to goal 4, which deals with school inclusion, and to the strategies defined in the Planos Municipais de Educação [Municipal Education Plans] (PMEs) of a region of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. We have problematized the accomplishment of this goal by the municipal education systems in what refers to the

Universalize, for the population from 4 (four) to 17 (seventeen) years old with disabilities, global developmental disorders and high skills or over-endowment, access to basic education . . . preferably in the regular education network, with the guarantee of an inclusive educational system . . . (emphasis added). (Lei n. 13.005, de 2014, own translation).

The problematization that we bring to this study stems from an interlacing between the PNE and the PNEEPEI. We question the “guarantee of an inclusive educational system” for the education of children who have disabilities, global developmental disorders and over gifted/higher abilities, as foreseen in goal 4 of the PNE. Thus, what interests this research is the analysis of the possibilities of a public policy, at national level, to unfold into effective municipal policies. In other words, goal 4 of the PNE proposes the universalization of education for children who have disabilities in inclusive educational systems, but how are the municipalities establishing their strategies to achieve it under these conditions? What strategies are being proposed by PME to achieve this goal? Thus, our objective in this article is to reflect on the strategies that municipalities present in PME in relation to the continued education of teachers, aiming at the construction of inclusive education systems.

A policy for building an inclusive school

The proposition of goal 4 of the PNE directs to the creation of inclusive educational systems, which reminds us to reflect on under what conditions and possibilities this reality could be achieved. In such a way, an educational system cannot be restricted to the development of actions in the school space and its pedagogical practices. The strategies in this goal indicate actions at the macro level, which, in turn, induce actions in the micro spaces, which include from the allocation of financial resources, qualification of pedagogical spaces, elaboration of programs, guarantee of access and permanence, articulation among public agencies, to the formation of teachers.

In this sense, the PNE acts as a public policy that constitutes a normative framework of actions, combining elements of public force and skills that tend to form a local force (Muller & Surel, 2010). As a national policy, it promotes the definition of actions located at state and municipal levels, including school. This is because,

for a public policy to “exist”, the different declarations and/or decisions must be brought together by a general framework of action that functions as a structure of meaning, i.e., that mobilizes elements of value and knowledge, as well as particular instruments of action, in order to achieve objectives built by the exchanges between public and private actors (Emphasis added by the authors). (Muller & Surel, 2010, p. 18-19, own translation).

According to Muller and Surel (2010), the measures proposed by a public policy are not necessarily printed in a single, perfectly coherent normative and cognitive framework. For these researchers, the creation and implementation of a policy depends on the actors who deal with its indicators and its purposes, and on the interpretation they make of them, in addition to considering the public that will be reached by this policy.

Under this understanding of public policy, we infer this research in order to investigate how municipalities are organizing their municipal policy for the construction of inclusive education systems, as foreseen in goal 4 of the PNE. We start from the assumption that it is crucial to analyze an educational policy based on government action and the intervention of other actors in its determination.

Thus, when the major legislation proposes the creation of inclusive systems, it is indicating to states and municipalities the need to establish their own actions that take into account their local reality. These actions should be included in the State/Municipal Education Plans as guidelines for the actions of education secretariats, as agencies responsible for conducting educational policy with schools and their pedagogical proposals. In this direction, the construction of inclusive systems is also addressed to school spaces, demonstrating the articulations of macro and micro public authorities.

The school space is the main locus of inclusion processes, as it is there that inclusive or non-inclusive practices are experienced. Proposing an inclusive educational system means thinking about building an inclusive school. However, it is necessary to problematize the realization of a total inclusion, because it is a reality that we know beforehand will not be reached in its fullness. Fabris (2011, p. 35, own translation) raises this discussion by explaining that there is no model of inclusion to which teachers should be prepared, because it would be an excess of optimism or misunderstanding to compact with the understanding of “inclusion as a point of arrival, as a place that we define a priori, and as a totality, where the goal is the definitive and total inclusion”. Under another expectation, we could understand that there is, in the processes of school inclusion, an opening to a vision of in/exclusion “as an open and incomplete process” (Fabris, 2011, p. 35), considering that no one is completely excluded or included in everything in an absolute way. According to Fabris, however, assuming the perspective of the unfinished of inclusion leads us to live the process of inclusion as “a constant and systematic challenge, one that is always in motion” (2011, p. 35).

Thus, when we propose to build an inclusive school we are welcoming all forms of diversity and recognizing differences as part of human nature. Carvalho (2009) highlights that the inclusive school goes beyond the presence of subjects in the school. If we want this school, our concerns should be in removing barriers to learning and participation, being a quality school for all, regardless of the “organic, psychosocial, cultural, ethnic or economic characteristics” (Carvalho, 2009, p. 114) that the subjects may present.

Analyzing the PNEEPEI, we can see that it was thought of under a tripod, composed by: i) destination of multifunctional resource rooms to offer specialized educational services; ii) double counting of the amount stipulated per student by the National Fund for Educational Development (FUNDEB); and iii) teacher training. These three factors appear in this policy, differentiating themselves from the previous ones, and are determining factors for the transformation of school spaces, because they show concrete conditions for education systems to unfold the national policy in their local policies.

For the first aspect, multifunctional resource rooms are foreseen, which are constituted as pedagogical spaces equipped with basic conditions (pedagogical materials and technological equipment) to carry out the AEE for students who are public of special education (Resolução n. 4, de 2 de outubro de 2009). This work must be performed by a teacher with specific training in the area of special education, which provides a pedagogical action specialized in teaching for these students. The AEE is carried out in the opposite shift to the common classroom attended by the student, and is not a substitute, but complementary and supplementary. According to the regulations (Resolução n. 4, de 2 de outubro de 2009) that regulate it, its role is to provide accessibility resources and strategies that reduce barriers to student participation and learning. It is up to the teachers who work in the AEE: “to establish articulation with common classroom teachers in order to provide services, pedagogical and accessibility resources and strategies that promote student participation in school activities” (Resolução n. 4, de 2 de outubro de 2009, p. 2, own translation).

FUNDEB’s double calculation allows the teaching systems to qualify teachers’ practices with the acquisition of materials and resources, or even make the necessary adjustments to adjust the environment and didactic processes to students with disabilities. The financial contribution is a crucial element for the organization of the accessible school, and it is important to emphasize that this is a new element in special education policies, introduced in the PNEEPEI, because it considers the duplicity of the student’s enrollment, that is, he/she is enrolled in the common classroom and in the multifunctional resource room.

The third element that supports the tripod of the PNEEPEI is teacher training. Here we find perhaps the greatest challenge in building inclusive systems, which is to provide continuing education for the contingent of professionals working in general education in the common classroom. Unlike the teachers who are in the resource classrooms, expressly qualified in teaching training and specialization in special education (Resolução n. 4, de 2 de outubro de 2009), those who are in the common classrooms, PNEEPEI does not show that they will have to go through continuous training processes to obtain the qualification in special education.

PNEEPEI (2008) declares an understanding that special education is that which occurs exclusively in the AEE room. Although its guidelines include the “training of teachers for specialized educational services and other education professionals for school inclusion” (p. 14, own translation), Bridi (2012, p. 53, own translation) warns us about the “lack of reference to the continued training of teachers who work in the common classrooms of teaching with students of special education”.

This produces an obstacle to school inclusion, because it is not enough that the education systems provide continuous training for teachers who work in the AEE, without investing in the continuous training of those who, in fact, develop the teaching process with students who have disabilities.

As a result, we have an enormous challenge for the construction of inclusive schools, because without a solid articulation between special education and general education, it will be difficult to achieve inclusive processes. Even if AEE teachers establish pedagogical articulations with those in the common rooms, continued training for the latter is essential for the qualification of inclusive pedagogical practices.

Methodological paths

This study addresses a qualitative methodology using document analysis, following the proposal of Lüdke and André (1986, p. 39, own translation) that documents “are not just a source of contextualized information, but arise in a given context and offer information about that context”. The documents analyzed are the PNE, instituted by law 13.005/2014, composed by 20 goals for national education, with validity for 10 years (2014-2024), and the PME of a set of municipalities in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (RS).

The PNE was approved after a long and broad national debate triggered in 2009, which brought together various segments of educational society linked to all levels and modalities of education, with representations from the public and private sectors, to define a national plan of education articulated between the Union, States and Municipalities. We cannot ignore the fact that the approval of the Plan also went through heated debates in the National Congress and Senate over four years until its approval in 2014, representing an intense dispute in Brazilian educational policy.

The PME analyzed belong to the 25 municipalities that make up the region of Missões¹/RS region available on the Ministério da Educação (MEC) website (PNE em Movimento, 2020). The data that constituted the analytical corpus of this study were the strategies expressed in the PME listed for the fulfillment of goal 4 of the PNE.

To develop the analysis of these documents, we followed the Content Analysis proposed by Lüdke and André (1986), considering an a priori defined category, directed to the continuous training of teachers. We chose some questions to guide this analysis: what kind of continuous training is being proposed in the PNE and in PME? What strategies of the PNE and PME indicate continued teacher training for the education of children with disabilities? Which teachers are involved in these proposals? What possibilities exist for such continuing education to promote inclusive systems?

The focus of the analyses in the PNE remained on the 19 strategies of goal 4 of the PNE, and after a “floating reading” on these, we find that they are focused on the following questions: a) financial regulations; b) implementation of resource rooms and specialized educational service centers; c) forecast of complementary programs for architectural accessibility and mobility; d) access, permanence and service to students with disabilities by professional teams; e) promotion of researches to subsidize the inclusion policy; f) inter-institutional articulation among organs and public policies; g) evaluation and follow-up of the inclusion policy; and h) concern with teachers’ training.

From this search, it was evident that in the PNE there are two strategies that deal with the continuous training of teachers, but neither is directed to teachers who work in common classrooms, only in the AEE.

In the analysis of the 25 PME, we verified the direction taken by their strategies in relation to continued training for school inclusion. From the total of the plans, we found 14 that pointed continued training for teachers who work in the AEE, specifically, without mentioning training to the other teachers; however, of these, two plans (PME5, PME8), mentioned training for the AEE in an “inclusive perspective”, indicating that the inclusion takes place beyond the AEE classroom, that is, it involves the whole school. Among the others, 11 plans indicated continued training for teachers in general; of these, 1 (PME1) mentioned continued training for managers, educators, students and family members, and 1 (PME20) presented an expanded vision of school inclusion, exposing several strategies under this bias; yet, 1 plan (PME18) did not make reference to continued training in the strategies of goal 4, but foresaw in the general text of the PME, the need to operationalize pedagogical political projects so that everyone can learn together, with or without disabilities, showing concern for diversity, and the need for continued training for school professionals.

In the following chart we present the municipalities that are part of this study.

CHART 1
MUNICIPAL EDUCATION PLANS AND THEIR RESPECTIVE MUNICIPALITIES

SME2	MUNICIPALITIES	SME	MUNICIPALITIES
SME1	Bossoroca	SME14	Roque Gonzales
SME2	Caibaté (não disponível)	SME15	São Borja
SME3	Cerro Largo	SME16	Salvador das Missões
SME4	Dezesseis de Novembro	SME17	Santo Ângelo
SME5	Entre-Ijuís	SME18	Santo Antônio das Missões
SME6	Eugênio de Castro	SME19	São Luiz Gonzaga
SME7	Garruchos	SME20	São Miguel das Missões
SME8	Giruá	SME21	São Nicolau
SME9	Guarani das Missões	SME22	São Paulo das Missões
SME10	Mato Queimado	SME23	São Pedro do Butiá
SME11	Pirapó	SME24	Sete de Setembro
SME12	Porto Xavier	SME25	Ubiretama
SME13	Rolador	SME26	Vitória das Missões

• Source: Authors’ elaboration.

Continuing education of teachers and school inclusion

In the first phase of the analysis of this research, we looked at strategies related to the continuous formation of teachers for school inclusion, present in the PNE, and we found only two that address this aspect, as shown in the following Chart.

CHART 2
PNE GOAL 4 AND STRATEGIES FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION

Target 4. Universalize, for the population between four and seventeen years old with disabilities, global developmental disorders and high skills or over gifted, access to basic education and specialized educational services, preferably in the regular education network, with the guarantee of an inclusive educational system, multifunctional resource rooms, classes, schools or specialized services, public or affiliated.

4.3) Implement, along this PNE, multifunctional resource rooms and foster continued training of teachers for specialized educational services in urban, rural, indigenous and quilombola communities schools.

4.18) Promote partnerships with community, confessional, or philanthropic non-profit institutions, in partnership with the public authorities, with a view to expanding the supply of continuing education and the production of accessible didactic material, as well as the accessibility services necessary for full access, participation, and learning for students with disabilities, global developmental disorders, and the high skills or over-skills enrolled in the public education network.

• Source: Lei n. 13.005 (2014).

We note in this survey that strategy 4.3 specifies continuing education for teachers working in the EEA, and strategy 4.18 mentions partnerships to expand continuing education, but does not specify whether it is directed only to EEA teachers or to teachers in general. We also found that continuing education, in general, is present in other goals and strategies of the PNE related to different audiences and levels and modalities of education, but we are not considering these data in this study.

In this sense, we direct our reflection to goal 4 and its strategies, considering them insufficient to institute inclusive educational systems. Michels (2011, p. 229, own translation) corroborates by presenting results of research on teacher training for school inclusion. This researcher warns that continued education focused on the AEE does not establish links with the common class, and is based “on the debate on resources and specific techniques related to disability and it is observed the absence of discussions regarding school processes”. This leads to the understanding that “the proposal for inclusion underway in the country does not presuppose the appropriation of school knowledge by students with disabilities” (Michels, 2011, p. 229, own translation).

The direction of continuing education for AEE professionals indicates a bias in the special education policies in force in Brazil, and even the PNEEPEI (2008) itself is faced with this instrumental and functional vision in relation to the multifunctional resource rooms intended for the AEE’s offer. According to this policy, special education is:

a modality of teaching that goes through all levels, stages and modality, performs the specialized educational service, makes the resources and services available and guides as to their use in the process of teaching and learning in common classes of regular education. (p. 16, own translation).

The intention of “making resources and services available” and “guiding their use” in common classes, leaves implicit the centrality of the classroom action in the students’ disability. Thus, the vision that is present in the regulations in force in the country suggests that there is a place exclusively for special education, and this can be an aggravating factor for schools to conduct the processes of inclusion.

The National Education Council Resolution No. 4, of October 2, 2009, intensifies this logic of the AEE by establishing guidelines for the provision of services and resources.

Art. 2 . . . complement or supplement the student’s education through the provision of services, accessibility resources and strategies that remove barriers to their full participation in society and the development of their learning. (Resolução n. 4, de 2 de outubro de 2009, p. 1, own translation).

With this, we do not want to state that these actions are not necessary, but to avoid the establishment of exacerbated disjunctions in the conduct of pedagogical work with the student who has a disability and in the performance of teachers - from the common classroom and the AEE room - dichotomizing special education and general education.

The relevance assumed by the strategies focused on the training of teachers who work in AEE, to the detriment of the general training of teachers, moves away from the construction of policies of continuous training to focus on “attending” students. Although it mentions the “educational” aspect - specialized educational care - it is not exempt from the clinical/medical/biological perspective, by the emphasis on the term “care” and “specialized”.

Garcia (2013) warns that Decree n. 6.571 (2008), when discussing AEE, no longer mentioned the term special education to refer to a field of knowledge, thus replacing it with the term “specialized educational care. Thus, it referred special education “to a model centered on resources and to be performed by a teacher with specific training” (Garcia, 2013, p. 106, own translation). In the same direction, Decree n. 7.611 (2011) defined guidelines for special education and AEE, influencing goal 4 of the PNE to give continuity to this perspective centered on AEE, as we can see in the following strategies of the plan in Chart 3.

CHART 3
THE CENTRALITY OF THE ESA IN TARGET 4 OF THE PNE

4.3) To implement, along this PNE, multifunctional resource rooms and foster continued training of teachers for specialized educational services in urban, rural, indigenous and quilombola communities schools;

4.4) guarantee specialized educational assistance in multifunctional resource rooms, classes, schools or specialized services, public or agreed upon, in complementary and supplementary ways, to all students with disabilities ....

• Source: Lei n. 13.005 (2014).

Certainly, the pedagogical support provided by AEE plays an important role in the process of school inclusion. It is necessary, however, that it be articulated to the teaching of the common classroom, otherwise we will maintain the perspective of special education as a “specialized service”, that is, on one side the AEE, and, on the other, the common classroom, which remains in the standardized normality to work with students considered “normal”, with some adaptations to those so-called “abnormal”.

We also found strategies in the PNE that open this functional perspective and indicate inclusive education as a general process, which involves all school spaces and different professionals in the educational task. This can be observed in three strategies of goal 4 of the PNE (Chart 4).

CHART 4
RELATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

4.8) ensure the provision of inclusive education, forbidding exclusion from regular education under the allegation of disability and promoting pedagogical articulation between regular education and specialized educational care;

4.16) encourage the inclusion in undergraduate courses and other training courses for education professionals, including at graduate level, observing the provisions in the caput of art. 207 of the Federal Constitution, of theoretical references, learning theories and teaching-learning processes related to the educational care of students with disabilities, global developmental disorders and high skills or over gifted;

4.19) promote partnerships with community, confessional, or philanthropic non-profit institutions, in agreement with the public authorities, in order to favor the participation of families and society in the construction of an inclusive educational system.

• Source: Lei n. 13.005 (2014) (emphasis added).

The 4.8 strategy indicates the “promotion of pedagogical articulation” between the rooms (common and specialized), but is focused on teaching and attendance. Strategy 4.16 proposes to “encourage” the inclusion of theoretical references related to school inclusion in undergraduate courses. However, with the growing demand for education from the special education public, it cannot be accepted that this type of training is a simple option of the courses, in including or not theoretical benchmarks that address the processes of teaching and learning to these students. The insertion of ethical, philosophical, political and pedagogical references that discuss inclusion are essential to resize the role of the school in a society marked by exclusions and prejudices of different orders, such as ours. In addition, it is necessary “to invest in theoretical and methodological proposals that promote the school-university relationship in order to contribute to the formation of these professionals, through activities mediated by collaborative processes that consider them within a critical-reflexive perspective” (Victor, 2011, p. 92, own translation).

In the second movement of our analyses, we have identified strategies in PME that foster continuous training both for teachers who work with AEE and those in common rooms, which we present in charts 5 and 6 below.

CHART 5
CONTINUING TRAINING FOR ESA TEACHERS

SME	STRATEGY
SME5	4.7) To promote, in collaboration with the State, throughout this SME, continued training of teachers for specialized educational services in urban and rural schools (p. 114).
SME8	4.4) Foster teacher training for the ESA from an inclusive education perspective (p. 71).
SME9	4.2) Establish, along this SME, multifunctional resource rooms and foster continued teacher training for specialized educational services in the municipality’s schools (p. 41).
SME10	4.2) To implement as needed, maintain and modernize, along this SME, multifunctional resource rooms and foster continued training of teachers for specialized educational services in the schools of the municipality (p. 36).
SME24	4.2) To maintain and expand, along this SME, multifunctional resource rooms and foster continued teacher training for specialized educational services in the municipality’s schools (p. 32).

• Source: Authors’ elaboration.

Analyzing the data presented in Chart 5, these lead us to ratify Garcia’s (2013) critique that the model of special education that is being designed in the country, based on several documents, including the PNE and PNEEPEI itself, identifies with the social reforms underway in Latin America since the 1990s, in the 20th century, as they are directed at maintaining the base and values of capitalist society. The introduction of continuous training processes centered on teachers who work in the AEE reveals a fragmented and technical vision of education, following the logic of work determined by specific and specialized “tasks”. The author goes on to assert that, “in this direction, the inclusive perspective does not seem to contribute, in general, to the process of schooling of students with disabilities, high skills and global developmental disorders . . .” (Garcia, 2013, p. 109, own translation).

This perspective of managing education at the expense of the debate on the pedagogical character necessary for transformations in teaching and learning processes can also be identified in the role and responsibilities of the AEE teacher and the multifunctional resource room itself. The resource room is responsible for providing “services, resources and strategies to eliminate barriers”, and the special education teacher is responsible:

I - identifying, elaborating, producing and organizing services, pedagogical, accessibility resources and strategies considering the specific needs of the target public of Special Education; II - elaborating and executing a plan for Specialized Educational Assistance, evaluating the functionality and applicability of the pedagogical and accessibility resources; III - organizing the type and number of assistance to students in the multifunctional resource room; IV - monitoring the functionality and applicability of the pedagogical and accessibility resources in the regular classroom, as well as in other school environments; V - establishing partnerships with intersectional areas in the development of strategies and availability of accessibility resources; VI - guiding teachers and families on the pedagogical and accessibility resources used by students; VII - teaching and using assistive technology in order to expand students’ functional skills, promoting autonomy and participation; VIII - establishing articulation with teachers in the common classroom, aiming at the availability of services, pedagogical and accessibility resources and strategies that promote student participation in school activities. (Resolução n. 4, de 2 de outubro de 2009, p. 3, own translation).

These assignments put the AEE teacher - special education teacher - in charge of the learning process through the management of “resources” needed for teaching, turning him/her into a “multifunctional being” (Garcia, 2013, p. 115). The enhancement of this role in the inclusion process is confirmed by observing the strategies of goal 4 of the PNE, which practically do not mention the continuous training of teachers in general, but rather the training of the AEE teacher aiming at the functioning of the multifunctional resource room. PME tend to follow the logic of the PNE. With some different perspectives, we verified, in the analysis of the municipal plans, a significant percentage (close to 40%) that includes in their strategies the continuous training of teachers in general, maintaining at the same time the continuous training for the AEE.

This leads us to argue that, in order to achieve universal schooling for the subjects of special education, it is necessary that local policies are not limited to what is foreseen in the PNE. Based on the assumption that the unfolding of national policies into local policies goes through a democratic process in which each entity or public space assumes them with autonomy, we can consider them objects of discussion and problematization, in order to be reconstructed by the subjects who lead them in the local realities in which they will be developed. Therefore, it is important to highlight the PME that have considered their reality and made explicit strategies contemplating continuous training for teachers in general, with the intention of building inclusive systems.

CHART 6
CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS IN GENERAL

SME	STRATEGY
SME1	4.3) To make education more meaningful and humanized, developing continuous training processes for managers, educators, students (people with disabilities or not) and family members (p. 52).
SME7	- Ensure in the Pedagogical Project of the schools the inclusion of care for students with special needs, offering in-service training to teachers in office (p. 38). - To continuously train all teachers in the school network so that all are able to serve students with special needs and high skills (p. 38).
SME15	4.9) To implement and expand . . . partnerships with IES [...] to maintain the work of Primary Education teachers with students with disabilities . . . paying special attention to the training and preparation of teachers in regular classes [...].
SME20	25.2) To ensure in the continuing education of basic education professionals, content related to the inclusion of people with disabilities, global developmental disorders, and high skills or over-gifted; using, including, the courses offered by the PAR, as well as in other distance education programs (p. 98).
SME26	4.5) Ensure continued in-service training for teachers with Special Education target-audience students in regular education classrooms, as well as for those serving in AEE classrooms (p. 50).

• Source: Authors’ elaboration.

As Muller and Surel (2010) explain, policy analyses must take into account that “the meaning of an action changes as it is implemented, and actors retrospectively modify their ends according to the results of the action itself that they are able to observe and evaluate” (p. 24, own translation). Municipalities have experienced challenges, greater or lesser with school inclusion, since the emergence of the PNEEPEI, depending on the demand of students with disabilities in their education network, and this could, in our understanding, justify the initiative of municipalities to define in their PME strategies to offer continuous training to all teachers. Chart 6 shows the PME elaborated by management teams, which, understanding the complexity of this process, incorporate the management responsibility in concrete actions.

In this sense, Brizolla (2015, p. 37, own translation) states in its research on inclusion policies:

The development of local parallel policies, convergent or alternative to central politics, is an essential social task for the advancement of democracy, in the sense that the conquest of the democratic condition demands clashes and resistance, incorporation and refutation of policies, but never the simplifying posture of “unaccountability” of some of the agents of politics in relation to the process to be built.

The municipalities that included in their plans, strategies providing for continuing education in general, gave a sense of their own and responsible for school inclusion, and went beyond the PNEEPEI and PNE. Michels (2011, p. 225, own translation) points out that in the PNEEPEI “there is nothing about the need to train teachers who are class regents with students considered disabled in their classrooms”. His studies have also shown that continuing education is being the most used strategy to train AEE teachers, since the initial training leaves something to be desired. The author reveals that both continuing education for those who work in the AEE and “initial education does not have as a central focus the articulation between the AEE and the common class. There is also a preponderance in the training of a model that supports the pedagogical and privileges the medical-psychological” (Michels, 2011, p. 229, own translation).

In this perspective of continuing education, a paradox is established because, at the same time that we want to promote the inclusion of children with disabilities, training perspectives are maintained for teachers who rationalize their work, segregating special education and general education.

Imbernón (2010, p. 47) contributes to our reflection by stating that the processes of continuing education cannot be restricted to “scientific, didactic and psycho-pedagogical updating”. For this reason, training that deals with pedagogical resources or methodologies is not enough to teach students who have deficiencies; more than that, changes are needed in terms of understanding the constitution of these subjects, and especially in terms of the normalizing processes that are adopted in teaching in general.

The concept of continuing education that the perspective of inclusive education should raise in special education should follow Imbernón’s (2010, p. 48) guideline, when he states that it should help “teachers to discover their theory, to organize it, to substantiate it, to revise it and destroy it or build it up again . . .”At the same time, continuing education for teachers, in general, also involves addressing the theories of learning and the specific knowledge of special education, because there is no way to ignore the knowledge accumulated by the theoretical field of special education. It will not be possible for the ordinary class teacher, who did not obtain in his academic formation knowledge about special education, only with knowledge of general education, normalizers that are often, to work with children or adolescents of special education.

Because it is the most appropriate strategy, continuing education becomes fundamental to the education systems, so it must be planned and supported by theoretical references that can resize the work of special education, removing it from the centrality assumed by the AEE on the pedagogical proposals of the schools. Not only special education, however, must be questioned; also general education, because it is not enough to adapt education to students with disabilities, but to rethink the educational model that supports the school.

The changes necessary for an inclusive system that respects differences and is not interested in “normalizing” the subjects, include the adoption of benchmarks that question the supremacy of normality and homogeneity, opening the thinking to acceptance of differences and recognition of the other. Welcoming differences and recognizing the other implies altering binary relations that put normality/abnormality and the self/other in opposition. This will only be possible, however, through the understanding of an ethical responsibility that we can have in relation to otherness. With this, we want to affirm that school inclusion and the construction of inclusive systems go far beyond technical strategies that a plan may propose. Inclusion implies changes that are situated in the field of culture and ethics, and only continued critical-reflexive formation can open ways for the normalizing foundations that integrate the school institution to be problematized.

Final considerations

Our intentions with this research were to investigate the articulation of the strategies adopted by the PNE and its developments in the municipalities, through the PME, for the realization of school inclusion. To this end, this study has built an analysis on the actions that educational management agencies are organizing to ensure school inclusion in common schools.

There are two aspects that we would like to highlight in relation to the results of this research. The first is the universalization of the access to education foreseen in goal 4, which we understand can be provided by the legal fulfillment of the obligation of enrollment and all the necessary structural issues, but learning and social interaction, fundamental aspects for inclusion, imply a complex process of continuous training that should reach all teachers (including managers), implying more attention on our part.

The second aspect indicates that the efforts of goal 4 of the PNE for the construction of “inclusive educational systems” are insufficient because they do not focus, in a more intense way, on the continuous training of teachers. The PME, in general, have followed this logic presenting strategies directed exclusively to special educational care, reaffirming special education as the one responsible for the educational work with the students who are the public of the national policy. Some municipalities, however, have resized their local policy, defining strategies for the general education of teachers, demonstrating an understanding that AEE and special education, isolated from general education, will not produce the necessary changes for the construction of inclusive systems. In the absence of proposals for continuing education for teachers in general, organized and conducted by the education management in the municipalities, that problematize special education and its clinical and therapeutic bias, and education in general itself, we will not be able to make school inclusion viable.

Miranda (2011, p. 138) has already mentioned some difficulties in this formative process, warning that inclusive education requires changes in conventional practices and, for this, the teacher must be “inquirer, researcher and reflective about his pedagogical know-how”. However, for this, he must be involved in collective formative processes that are theoretically sustained. In this would be, centrally, the action of education managers, and the strategies of their municipal planning.

The problematization that guided us in the analysis of the strategies of PME, related to the continued training of teachers for the education of children with disabilities, was implicit in the criticism that it is not enough to have a goal in the PNE about school inclusion, since their strategies are blurred from the training of teachers in general. The inclusion that is expected to happen in the whole school, but mainly in the common classroom space, in the relationship between subjects - teacher and student - and knowledge, resulting in learning possibilities. It is pertinent, however, to highlight once again that the strategies of goal 4 of the PNE direct local policies of school inclusion, agglutinating them, as a priority, to structural and organizational issues, leaving a gap in relation to pedagogical aspects.

In this sense, we hope that this study will contribute to the education systems, strengthening their reflections, strategies and actions to conduct their municipal policies of school inclusion, understanding that it is not the task of the AEE, but of education in general. School inclusion implies changes in school culture and in teachers’ thinking, supplanting homogenizing references and assumptions by a vision of heterogeneity, based on epistemological, ethical and philosophical understandings towards otherness, respect and acceptance of differences.

Dorziat (2011, p. 154, own translation) recommends reviewing the relationship between special education and general education in order to think about teacher training:

overcoming simplistic discussions around a generalist or specialized approach. One does not exclude the other, on the contrary, there must be a complementarity between them, sustained by the logic of difference. This means that it is not enough to prepare teachers to deal with the biological differences of students in a specific way, but to seek to destabilize the traditional pedagogy of classification, which is based on a supposed pattern of normality.

The (im)possibilities of school inclusion are not given and are not easy to build. They depend on the action of the subjects involved in inclusion policies, both those who work in the management and organization of formation processes in the municipal education departments, and those who are in the direction of schools or working in the classroom.

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• 1
  There are 26 municipalities that integrate the region of Missões/RS, but one SME is not available for online consultation.
• 2
  To mention the Municipal Education Plans of the 25 municipalities, we will use the expression SME1, SME2, SME3, and so on.

• Data availability statement

  The data underlying the research text are reported in the article.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  07 May 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  13 Apr 2020
• Accepted
  29 Sept 2020