Curriculum of pre-service teacher education and inclusion of PAEE students: an analysis of the Projeto Imersão Docente

Abstract

This article analyzes the knowledge and practices made available in pre-service teacher education curriculum of the Projeto Imersão Docente (PID) with regard to the inclusion of students targeting special education (PAEE), based on the meanings attributed by those who participated in the Project. The PID constitutes a possibility of pre-service teacher education that operates through the insertion of future teachers in elementary school classes at a full-time school that works at a Federal University. In this Project, undergraduate students have the possibility to act as mediators for the process of inclusion of students PAEE, being guided by the teaching team that works at the institution. Based on the post-critical perspective and, particularly, on the concepts developed by Michel Foucault, it is understood that the curriculum of this Project provides certain knowledge and demands that undergraduate students exercise certain practices on themselves in order to constitute as future teachers who take inclusion as a central aspect of their teaching actions. Through the analysis of interviews conducted with thirteen undergraduate students who worked on the Project between 2016 and 2018, it is argued that this curriculum operates with knowledge that provides constant questioning (if), the understanding of “difference within difference” and the belief in everyone's potential for permanent learning. Thus, this curriculum reactivates the imperative of inclusion that operates today and produces teachers who believe in the potential of inclusive education to promote a more just and equal education.