Inclusion of students with disabilities beyond marketing is rare – 09/20/2024 – Education

Finding schools that claim to be inclusive is not so difficult these days. The tricky part is finding those where inclusion goes beyond rhetoric and propaganda, say experts and parents of children and young people with disabilities.

“It is common for schools not to have inclusion curricula and to place students with autism, with ADHD [Transtorno do Déficit de Atenção com Hiperatividade] or with other difficulty in trying to follow the same content offered to everyone. They don’t think about what they want for each student”, says Lilian Feingold Conceição, psychologist and educational counselor who specializes in inclusive education.

Raising awareness about the importance of social inclusion is one of the purposes of the National Day of Struggle for Persons with Disabilities, celebrated on September 21. The date was established by law in the country in 2005. Ten years later, in 2015, the Brazilian Inclusion Law was signed, which guarantees the rights of people with disabilities, including access to quality education in public or private schools.

In Brazil, more than 6 million students have some type of disability or learning disorder, 12.8% of the total, according to a survey by Equidade.info, an initiative linked to the School of Education at Stanford University, in the United States.

In the private network, in particular, words such as inclusion and diversity are often “put on a shelf” without these values ​​being considered in their pedagogical projects, says the advisor.

“Private schools end up being products, they are part of a market and compete for students. Many of them raise certain flags, checking what society wants at that moment,” he says.

A lawyer who provides consultancy on inclusion for families and schools, Alynne Nunes says that, “although in the public network the problem is certainly deeper, with children without reports and without care, there is a lot of negligence in private schools.”

“We have to remember that the private network is not made up of elite schools – and even these are not free from problems. But there are many private schools for the middle and lower middle classes, and the problems of lack of structure are huge.”

President of the Commission for the Rights of People with Disabilities of the São Paulo Bar Association and mother of a young man with autism, Camilla Varella states that legal proceedings involve a series of schools that claim to be inclusive, even the most expensive ones.

This is the case of the lawsuit filed by the family of Vicente, 16 (fictitious name), who has ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) level 1 —he needs occasional support— with high abilities —he is gifted.

His main difficulty is social interaction. The school, therefore, needs to be able to challenge him in terms of content and, at the same time, provide support in social interaction. He was enrolled in one of the most expensive schools in São Paulo, which, according to his mother, has an inclusive and diversity-supporting discourse.

But Vicente ended up becoming a victim of bullying and accusations of harassment. According to his mother, the young man does high-level math calculations, but in some ways he seems like a child and cannot understand some social codes.

The school, he says, only agreed to offer this support after the family filed a lawsuit. And, as a mediator, a teacher with no training in autism was appointed.

The young man has also been prevented by the school from participating in field trips, which, according to his mother, reinforces the prejudice of his classmates. She says that one of the biggest problems is the lack of awareness-raising work for the entire school community: teachers, staff, students and families.

Lilian Feingold Conceição says that inclusion, if done incorrectly, can create insecurity for everyone at school, which obviously further complicates the situation of those who have disabilities or learning disabilities.

“Even in schools that claim to be inclusive, where all families, when enrolling their children, buy into this idea, there is a risk that some parents will start to ask themselves: ‘Will this not be a hindrance? Will it delay learning?'” he says.

The psychologist advocates in-depth awareness-raising efforts to show that inclusion is positive for everyone and to “dismantle meritocracy.” “The best school cannot be the one that places a student in the top spot in medicine at USP, but the one that also places students with autism at their best.”

Taiza Stumpp, a professor and researcher at Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo) who coordinates a study group on autism and the university’s Mental Health Observatory, says that families of children and young people with ASD report pressure from some parents of typical children (as those who do not have disabilities or learning disorders are called) for content-centered teaching. “The school feels that it ‘owes explanations’ to these parents about inclusion,” she explains.

In both public and private schools, researchers are faced with “distressed” professionals, lacking training and protocols to put inclusion into practice. “The lack of support creates stress for teachers and families,” he says. “Among the demands are the lack of special teaching materials and a pedagogical design conceived with the collaboration of teachers, specialized professionals, managers and families, which considers each student.”

Next year, the Unifesp group will hold a training course for teachers and school managers, with the participation of families of students with ASD.