Desigualdades e diferenças na sala de aula: a nomeação dos diferentes na produção da exclusão escolar

Abstract

This thesis is related to the research direction Knowledge and Educational Practices which is part of the Master s Degree Program at Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (FACED/UFU), located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. This study was aimed at investigating and analyzing the exclusion/inclusion processes within the classroom stemming from the treatment given to students regarded as different. The purpose of this research is to examine how the problems concerning differences are dealt with in the classroom, as well as their outcomes, by investigating the teachers attitude in various circumstances in which it is possible to analyze differences and prejudice. Inferiorized differences that take place through hierarchization processes and through the use of violence under the indiscipline bias were defined as line of analysis. For this purpose, an eighth grade class in a municipal school was observed and examined. In order to assay these differences, the following binarisms were taken into account: homossexuality/heterossexuality; syndromes/absence of syndromes; beauty/ugliness; discipline/indiscipline; and black skin/white skin. A qualitative research method was adopted and data were collected through direct observation, documentary analysis, and semi-structured interviews with the teachers, the principal, the pedagogue and the school psychologist. From the overall information gathered from the interviews, the direct observation and the documents, the study showed that designing a curriculum which caters for differences demands new attitudes, new knowledge, new objectives, new contents, new strategies and new assessment methods from the teacher; more importantly, it demands new views so as to allow for the understanding of differences. However, what can be actually noticed nowadays is that teachers are unprepared to reflect upon a subject matter as complex as the one concerned.