The concept of social reproduction of sets of advantages and disadvantages together with that of status group, is used to explore the evidence and thinking presented in the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb, etc. regarding the education of children with disabilities in 1889. Even though the evidence was ambiguous, models for the education of children with disabilities were laid down. Integration into mainstream elementary schools was recommended (...) for the blind. Recommendations for deaf children were divided in allegiance with belief in the principles of either oralism or signing. The largest group numerically received the least attention in the Commission. The idea of feeble-minded children as a product of social, economic and educational circumstances had its champion but was overwhelmed by the acceptance of the doctrine of the innate characteristics of the child's mind identifiable by medical science. (shrink)

The concept of school inclusion applied to disabled children knows an international distribution and is more or less used in national contexts, but with wide variations in interpretation. The concept of disability tends to be supplanted by other terms such as «special needs». These notional transformations are at the heart of the tensions that exist within the education system and also perform in their relations with various external partners, including experts of disability and parents. The major (...) issues are those of the educational finalities of the institutions and practices for these children: separate or common socialization, people development or acquisition of knowledge, perspectives of skilled labor or not etc. Among the possible approaches to the current problem, the first step is the analysis of the regulatory and institutional legislative, established in France for so-called «disabled» children. The second step is favored by the approach of ethnographic field which has the advantage of showing the representations and practices of actors in everyday life. The example developed is that of an elementary school in the city of Paris, which seeks to meet the challenge of hosting the difference while maintaining the goal of «academic excellence.» In this tension, how are teachers, specialists, parents, children with disabilities among their peers? What finally are the evolutions outlook? (shrink)

Although there is broad support in the current Brazilian legislation and many curricular documents published in the last three decades, we still face the challenge of the inclusive education in our classrooms. This is a qualitative research in which we investigate the perception of three school pedagogical coordinators about the inclusion of disabled children in regular classes of Elementary and High School of the schools that self-declared favorable to the Inclusive Education. The results suggest perceptions of (...) Inclusive Education with specific goal to comply with current legislation, which aims exclusively at the socialization of the disabled as a target of charity, without great teaching learning goals that allow equal access to school knowledge and continuity of study in the educational system. (shrink)