Training of Pedagogy students at Universidade Estadual Paulista: curriculum and social attitudes towards inclusion

• Grant number: 11/00501-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: May 01, 2011
• End date: July 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Specific topics in Education
• Principal Investigator: Sadao Omote
• Grantee: Cristiane Regina Xavier Fonseca-Janes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Inclusive Education is a high quality education that should be offered by the educational system for all children, youth and adults. For the realization of such a proposal, an important condition is the construction of positive social attitudes toward inclusion, since they may organize or re-organize beliefs and cognitions about the differences, direct favorable affect to differences, and mainly construct action to the acceptance of differences. From these perspectives, this study aims to examine whether the Courses of Pedagogy at Universidade Estadual Paulista prepare students for discussions and foundations of Inclusive Education, Special Education and school inclusion, after the publication of the National Curriculum Guidelines of May 15, 2006. 404 students attending last year of Pedagogy Course took part in this survey. The materials to be used for this survey are: (1) a questionnaire with the student blank form to the filled by students identities information and semi-open issues concerning conceptions about Inclusive Education, Special Education and School Inclusion, and (2) a Likert Scale of Social Attitudes towards Inclusion. It is used to measure social attitudes towards inclusion. This research project will gather information for discussions about the training of teachers for the great challenge of the century, the formation of historical subjects with a predisposition to genuinely positive social attitudes regarding inclusion.