Decolonial and Freirean Perspectives on Inclusion of a Deaf Student in a Brazilian Elementary School

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: International Perspectives of Education (Table 6)

Abstract

Brazilian law guarantees every student the right to a quality education that recognizes and responds to their unique ways of learning. In this paper, we interrogate the political and sociocultural context of Brazilian public education as well as the processes recently undertaken by school professionals in a Brasilian elementary school to integrate Sofia, a 7-year-old deaf girl with autism and Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, into a general education first grade classroom. We document decolonial and Freirean perspectives undergirding disability understanding and classroom praxis as reported by these school professionals. We argue that a genuine shift towards inclusive education can only materialize through a deliberate rupture in conventional education that can challenge the hegemony of “normal” minds and bodies.

Authors

• Bárbara Silveira Baptista de Oliveira, Pennsylvania State University

• Ana Luisa Borba Gediel, Federal University of Viçosa

• Jan W. Valle, City College of New York - CUNY