Núcleo de acessibilidade da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande: estruturação, organização e contribuições para a inclusão

Abstract

The research presented is an excerpt from the project entitled Accessibility Centers in Higher Education Institutions: organization, structuring, and contributions to the field over the last decade, which is being developed by GEPEPES – the Study and Research Group on Policies and Practices in Special Education and Educational Inclusion, part of the research line “State, Policies, and Education Management” within the Graduate Program in Education at the Faculty of Education of the Federal University of Uberlândia. Understanding the roles of Accessibility Centers, their organization, structure, and contributions within academic spaces is highly relevant, especially considering that students with disabilities are already a reality in public institutions. This is a basic research study with a qualitative approach, aiming, in general, to conduct a descriptive and exploratory analysis of the inclusion policies developed by the Accessibility Centers at the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG). The data collected was sourced from the public database of the Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP), seeking to understand its contribution to the retention and academic integration of students in special education from 2008 to 2024. The specific objectives include mapping the history of the creation and institutionalization of the Accessibility Centers; describing the actions developed by these centers to eliminate pedagogical, architectural, attitudinal, communicational, and academic barriers in order to guarantee the permanence and integration of students in their courses; and mapping, through INEP data, the trajectory of students with disabilities who enrolled and graduated between 2008 and 2024 at FURG. We also explored the databases of the Capes portal and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD), selecting works that address Accessibility Centers to understand affirmative policies within institutions. Additionally, we examined higher education legislation that contributed to making the inclusive university a social reality. The data found on enrollment and graduation of students with disabilities indicate a weakness, as these students are occupying academic spaces but are still not completing their studies.