The Brazilian education system. Students with disabilities

Abstract

The Brazilian education system provides a specific form of organization for the inclusive education of students with disabilities. Law No. 9394 dated December 20, 1996, “Lei de diretrizes e bases da educação nacional”, presents in Chapter V the “educação especial" as a form of organization offered to students "portadores de Necessidades especiais”. Admission of students with disabilities in the Brazilian schools was characterized by several phases: the welfarist phase, the integration phase and the inclusion phase, which is the most recent one and now being debated. The presence of a special device fosters the differences, even when everybody enters the classbecause a separation perspective damps down all the procedural and design efforts towards a true integration, holding back collaboration and action sharing among teachers. We consider however effective an action that accompanies the gradual learning evolution mediating between the student with disabilities and peers, between him and the teachers, between him and the learning tools designed.