TITLE:
National Observatory on Special Education: Network Study about Inclusive Education in Brazil
AUTHORS:
Mendes Eniceia, Cia Fabiana
KEYWORDS:
Special Education, Inclusive Education, Educational Policy, Brazil
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.3 No.9,
September
18,
2015
ABSTRACT: Considering the importance of collaborative
networks of research, a group of Brazilian researchers has created the National
Observatory on Special Education (in Portuguese Oneesp), whose focus is on the
production of integrated studies about policies and practices directed to the
issue of school inclusion in Brazilian reality. The present
project has focused on a nationwide study about a government policy to stimulate
the creation of support services to students with special educational needs in
regular schools, called “Multifunctional Resource Rooms (MRR)”. According to
official data, between 2005 and 2011 the Brazilian Ministry of Education had
financed 30.000 MRR spread in all Brazilian states. To what extent this type of
service has supported the education of children and young with educational
special needs? To answer these questions 203 researchers from 16 Brazilian
states, representing 22 universities are leading a network study to analyze the
municipalities’ implementation of this policy. Studies were conducted involving
58 municipalities for concurrently produce, knowledge and professional
development through collaborative research, and were conducted through
interviews with focus groups composed of approximately 450 MRR teachers, and
then a national study survey in progress, directed to about 500 MRR teachers.
The analysis of the results, still preliminary, indicated that the policies of
the municipalities, despite following some guidelines from the Ministry of Education,
were translated to their reality and assumed quite different local expressions
depending in part on local history of the development of services of special
education in determined reality.