Estudo comparado sobre a educação das APAEs em Minas Gerais e no Paraná: entre mutações e permanências.

Abstract

The role of APAEs is recognized in the history of Special Education in Brazil, providing assistance to students with disabilities. This assistance has undergone different phases. If, previously, persons with disabilities were institutionalized and excluded from society, today the struggle is for quality inclusion in all areas of their lives. Currently, the consensus is that the school has to adapt itself to receive these persons. In this setting, the National Policy on Special Education from the Perspective of Inclusive Education (Política Nacional de Educação Especial na perspectiva da Educação Inclusiva, PNEEPEI) has guaranteed and encouraged the enrollment of students with disabilities into regular schools. This causes, on the one hand, the closing of special schools throughout Brazil and, on the other hand, the need for restructuring those that remain open. In this scenario, debates about the place that these institutions should occupy, in relation to services for students with disabilities, have intensified. Data from the School Census has shown a systematic increase in the number of enrollments of students with disabilities in regular schools. However, an increase in the enrollments in exclusively Special Education classes could be seen to have occurred in Paraná, in contrast to Brazilian data, mainly from the state of Minas Gerais, where the reduction in enrollments in exclusively Special Education classes has become significant since the publication of the PNEEPEI. The observation of such conflicting scenarios in Brazil justifies the need for the present study whose aim is to discuss the process of appropriating the PNEEPEI by the APAEs of Minas Gerais and Paraná, from the perspective of their Federations. To conduct the present documental and comparative study, the methodology used was document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that, although the APAEs are part of a national network, they present many differences ranging from the organization of the schooling process to the perspective about the students with disabilities. The findings show that the APAEs studied are found in different positions in relation to the PNEEPEI. It can be claimed that the APAEs in Minas Gerais changed to follow the current trends while the APAEs in Paraná have remained far from the advances proposed by the PNEEPEI. Understanding the place of the APAEs in relation to the PNEEPEI contributes to the current debate, clarifying the new forms of organization of these institutions, marked by continuities and changes.