Cartografando a formação continuada de professores de educação especial em um município capixaba : pesquisa-formação

Abstract

This dissertation aims to map and understand the implications of the Improvement Course “Special Education from the Perspective of Inclusion in the Common School” for three Special Education teachers from a municipality in Espírito Santo, as well as to analyze the movements that emerged from their discourses and pedagogical practices. The study seeks to contribute to the continuous training processes of education professionals and to the schooling of students in Special Education based on the experiences of these teachers. To this end, the following specific objectives were established: to analyze the formative processes experienced by Special Education teachers from Domingos Martins-ES who participated in the Improvement Course at Federal University of Espírito Santo; to understand the conceptions of continuing education that guide their teaching practices, considering their narratives and the discourses expressed in the municipality’s official educational documents; and to map and reflect, together with the teachers, on the needs for continuing education aimed at inclusive pedagogical practices. The research is theoretically grounded in the sociological contributions of Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2010, 2011, 2018, 2019) and the pedagogical perspectives of Philippe Meirieu (2002, 2005). It also dialogues with authors discussing Special Education and teacher continuing education from an inclusive perspective, such as Jesus (2006), André (2009), Pantaleão (2009), and Borges (2019), among others. This is a qualitative study, adopting as its methodological framework the Symbolic Cartography of Social Representations (Santos, 2011) and, as its methodological and epistemological approach, research-training (Barbier, 2004; Longarezi & Silva, 2013), guided by the principle of investigating with and not about the participating teachers. For data production and documentation, various methodological strategies were employed, including participant observation with field diary records; audio recording and transcription of meetings; documentary and bibliographic analysis; examination of official documents on continuing education in Domingos Martins-ES; written narratives by the teachers; as well as formal and informal, in-person, and virtual dialogues. The data analysis, organized into thematic axes, highlighted the importance of continuous training programs in promoting teachers' professional development and the schooling of Special Education students. The findings also reveal the potential of these training programs in transforming teachers' conceptions and practices, shifting toward more critical and reflective perspectives, and reshaping their relationship with knowledge, particularly when fostering the interaction between theory and practice. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the role of the public university as a teacher-training institution and a catalyst for change in the educational field. The results indicate that the Improvement Course served as an alternative to traditional teacher training models, and that research-training emerged as a possibility for collaborative knowledge construction, leading to the transformation of pedagogical conceptions and practices and contributing to the consolidation of an inclusive school committed to the learning of all students