Educação inclusiva: representação de pessoas com deficiências em uma coleção de livros didáticos de biologia para o ensino médio

Abstract

Based on the assumption that inclusive education is a fundamental principle that seeks to guarantee access to education for all, textbooks play a crucial role in the educational formation of Brazilian society, being a teaching resource widely used in the classroom. This work aims to investigate the textual and visual representations of people with disabilities in a collection of Biology textbooks used in high school at the ECIT João Goulart school, in João Pessoa, Paraíba. Since teaching materials are influenced by culture, the theoretical contribution of Moscovici's works (1961, 1978, 2003 and 2007) on the concept of social representations was applied. Also based on the work of Hall (1997, 2016), which addresses the role of image in conveying ideas through the media, this research is a qualitative documentary analysis. The methodology followed the content analysis proposed by Bardin (1977), focusing on the analysis of images, texts, and complementary content about people with disabilities present in the collection of textbooks approved in the National Book and Teaching Material Program (PNLD). The material analyzed was the collection Moderna Plus Natural Sciences and its Technologies (2020) containing six volumes. Based on reading this collection and analyzing the documents, two categories were defined: (1) Type of disability, subcategories: physical, visual, auditory, multiple, dwarfism, and Down Syndrome; and (2) Accessibility equipment, subcategories: leg prosthesis, crutch, cane, wheelchair, sunglasses, color sense, eye patch, and hearing aid. The analysis revealed that there are repeated representations concerning medical or clinical aspects, with a marked inclination towards diagnoses, together with the presence of stereotypes in relation to people with disabilities. The results suggest a need to restructure and examine more closely the selection of textbooks for educational institutions regarding the representation of people with disabilities, aiming for an inclusive and conscious approach for the entire school community.