Educação inclusiva : um olhar sobre a diversidade na educação infantil

Abstract

This study investigates how an Early Childhood Education School deals with the issue of diversity in the perspective of Inclusive Education. To do that, the interventions of educators with all children, with and without disabilities, are characterized, considering their specificities and characteristics.It also analyzes how the interactions among children take place, considering their specificities and characteristics, and also examines how (if so) the presence of children with disabilities helps to make the environment more helpful to development, participation and the learning of all children. An exploratory qualitative study was carried out, with participant observation being the main tool for data collection. Two classes of a municipal kindergarten in Porto Alegre were visited during the first semester of 2017.The data from the observations were recorded in a Field Journal, which was analyzed from the Discursive Textual Analysis. Many interventions revealed a connection between educators and children, favoring peer interaction, choice of play, feeling of belonging, communication and participation in group tasks, and revealing attention to individual and group needs. On the other hand, sometimes, adults were unable to connect to the needs of children, either by losing rich opportunities for intervention or by doing so in an inconsistent manner, thus not seeming to offer the help they needed for the activities or for interactions among the group. On the interactions among the children, four different forms were observed: through play, imitation, cooperation and aggression.Thus, the context observed was favorable to learning and interactions among all, so that deficiencies or other difficulties were taken from a heterogeneity perspective, among children, educators and management. However, some points still need to be improved, considering Early Childhood Education is still under construction in our country, gaps in teacher’s education, and internal and external divergences of the institution. Therefore, concretizations, difficulties and contradictions characterize the action of the school and the relationships and interactions observed for this study.