Meanings of deafness according to Venturosa teachers, in Agreste of Pernambuco

Abstract

This article is part of a dissertation that aimed to understand the meanings of deafness constructed by teachers in the city of Venturosa, thus making visible the Agreste region of Pernambuco. Theoretically, we start from the concept of “meaning”, understood as a socially shared construction and constitutive of inductive models that enable teachers to deal with the unpredictable in the classroom. From the methodological point of view, 49 teachers answered a questionnaire containing ten open questions and a Likert scale with 20 items. The data obtained illustrated a distance between the concept of deafness and the professional practice of teachers who do not work with deaf people and/or who have little contact with Libras. These results showed the postures that differentiate between deafness and hearing impairment: presence of oral speech, moment of onset of deafness and level/degree of hearing. It was also noted that the participants were sensitive to the inclusive model, despite difficulties in implementing it in regular education and resistance to bilingual education (Portuguese-Libras). The scientific invisibility of regions such as Agreste Pernambucano justifies studies that denounce the gap in training, both initial and continued, far from the metropolises. In this field of disputes, the teachers deal with their lags, their belonging and a practice that cannot be completely prescribed, since the “recipes” do not work.