Re-mediating Practices: A Journey of Culturally Responsive Formative Intervention

• In Event: Formative Interventions from the Global South: Expansive Learning as Justice-Oriented Educational Praxis

Abstract

Objectives
This paper examines the activity system of Instituto Benjamin Constant (IBC), a specialized school for students with visual impairments in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Instituto Benjamin Constant is a pioneer specialized school in Latin America and a landmark in the history of Brazilian special education. As such, the school plays a crucial role in shaping local inclusive education. By examining its activity system, the study aims to develop a new practice that addresses the challenges faced by the school within the framework of inclusive education. One of these challenges is how to effectively include a new profile of students: students with multiple disabilities. this study engages diverse local school stakeholders in the identification and problem-solving process that leads to the examination and implementation of a sustainable new model of practice.

Theoretical framework
This study is grounded in CHAT which adopts the object-oriented activity system as its unit of analysis (Engeström, 2015). In this case, the unit of analysis is IBC, whose organizational contradictions, accumulated throughout its history, drive processes of transformation. Contradictions accumulated throughout the history of an activity system drive change within that system. When a new object enters an activity system, it triggers conflicts among multiple voices between old and new forms of practice. Learning Lab, as a formative intervention, draws on these contradictions as a catalyst for expansive learning (Bal, 2017; Bal et al., 2016; 2018).

Methods
We will conduct a formative intervention methodology, Learning Lab. In contrast to the first Learning Lab, which was conducted remotely, 10 in-person meetings will be facilitated. The Learning Lab methodology will ensure that all voices from the local community are included in a collective process of problem identification and resolution — the cycle of change. Participants will engage in activities that support actions aimed at completing the stages of the change cycle. These expansive actions will contribute to identifying challenges and developing innovative and sustainable solutions that are appropriate to the available resources and the local culture of the institution.

Data sources
Our data comes from the Learning Lab sessions and a present effort from the current administration in organizing available school data such as demographic information, academic performance, and attendance. Data sources include a collective map of inclusion, artifacts, transcripts, and field notes. These reflect a dilemmatic space where the object of the activity rests on multiple contested and interrelated historical layers and perspectives.

Results
The previous online Learning Lab engaged practitioners in a journey of expansive learning, resulting in an initial model designed to re-mediate practices. Present Learning Lab will build on these initial efforts to complete the cycle of change by examining, implementing, and consolidating a new form of practice.

Significance
This study presents the first Learning Lab in a specialized school in Brazil, revealing how inclusive education has evolved in the history of special education in Brazil. It announces how CHAT can develop conditions for collaborative decision-making, leading to innovations that have the potential to become a turning point in the development of local, ground-up, sustainable, inclusive educational practices.

Authors

• Fabiane Bravo M. Bastos, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Angelica Bêta, Instituto Benjamin Constant

• Fabiana Rangel, Instituto Benjamin Constant

• Ivan Finamore, Instituto Benjamin Constant

• Karine Pereira, Instituto Benjamin Constant