Representações sociais, inclusão social e resiliência no contexto da deficiência visual

Abstract

The present thesis aimed at apprehending the social representations about social inclusion of people with visual impairment elaborated by people with this impairment and quantify the levels of resilience in this group of belonging. To achieve this, it was necessary to develop three studies. The first one entitled "Social Inclusion of People with Visual Impairment: A Study of Social Representations", aimed to identify social representations made by visually impaired people on their social inclusion. Thirty people aged between 18 and 65 years (M = 34.2 and SD = 14.4) participated in this study, contacted at two public institutions that answered a sociodemographic questionnaire and an in-depth interview. Data were processed by Excel and Alceste software. The results pointed out that social representations elaborated by the participants about their social inclusion revealed that these are given primarily by the educational system despite having negative opinions about Inclusive education and the restrictions of access to the educational system, as well as to human rights. Public policies, legal guarantees, and labor activity emerged as key representational axes for social inclusion. The second study entitled "Semantic Universes of Social Inclusion: A Study of Social Representations", aimed to apprehend the representational fields about social inclusion and visual impairment elaborated by people with visual impairment. The sample consisted of 109 participants aged 18 to 69 years (M = 26.02 and SD = 11.57), who answered a sociodemographic questionnaire and the Free Word Association technique. Data were computed by Excel and Tri-deux-Mots software. The results provided a representational reading of the semantic variations associated with the inducing stimuli: visual impairment, social inclusion and myself. "Visual deficiency" was objectified in the elements" condition, "overcoming", "vision", "living","depends" "help" and "limit", and anchored in biopsychosocial spheres. With regard to "social inclusion", this construct was objectified in the elements "government", "accessibility", "law", "law", "quotes", "new", "important", "opportunity," Anchored in the category of legislation. These objections lead to the implication that social inclusion depends on governmental prerogatives that guarantee the right to accessibility in the various spheres of health, education, work, leisure, among others. As for the third self-inducing stimulus, the participants defined themselves as "shy", "dependent", "capable" and "fighters" who were "calm" and who in their "lives" endeavored to "study" A semantic field anchored in the psychosocial sphere. The third study focused on "Resilience in the context of Visual Impairment", with the objective of quantifying levels of resilience in the context of visual impairment. The sample was the same as in the second study, which answered in addition to the sociodemographic questionnaire, the Resilience Scale. Data was processed by Excel software. Results from the resilience scale indicated that the majority of the group (49.5%) had moderate resilience. It is possible to conclude that approximately half of the participants have the capacity to overcome adversities in relation to urban accessibility, the difficulties inherent in the context of the inclusive educational system, as well as the ability to deal with prejudice, frustrations, discouragement and socialization that coexist in daily life. It is expected that these results will contribute to a greater visibility of this group of belonging with regard to social inclusion in the various segments of society. Key words: social inclusion, visual impairment, social representation, resilience.