Disability goes to university: Views and obstacles of inclusive process in Brazilian higher education

Abstract

This text intends to discuss the inclusive process of academic students with a physical disability in the scope of a Brazilian public higher education institution, as well as to show the possibilities of public policies that the university exposes in this process. For such, it was resorted to a historical resetting around the adoption of inclusive public policies, but also to the use of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with some of these academic students. The results indicate that many times the “inclusion” is confounded with the guarantee of vacancy and/or access to university, which does not go beyond this aspect. It is also emphasized the participants’ lack of knowledge about the legislation and the policies that govern or guide the inclusion of disabled people. As conclusions, we highlight the uncertainty around the place reserved to the disabled students in higher education, as well as the challenge of consolidating the process of educative inclusion.

Keywords: special education, disabled people, inclusion.