Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Anna Augusta Sampaio de. The concept of deficiency in discussion: social representations of specialized teachers. Rev. bras. educ. espec. [online]. 2004, vol.10, n.01, pp.59-74. ISSN 1413-6538.

The aim of this study was to investigate the representations that skilled teachers in the different areas of special education have about the concept of deficiency. We used the interview as an instrument of collecting data. Twenty-three teachers of the four areas of deficiency (auditive, physical, mental and visual) were the participants of this project. Such teachers participated in the specialized education attendance in special or resource classrooms from the state public education in Marília. As a procedure of data analysis, we used the following categories related to the conceptions of deficiency that we intended to study. 1) Individual conception; 2) Psychosocial conception and 3) Interactive conception. According to the results, we could observe that 13 teachers (56.6%) have an individual conception of the deficiency, locating it in individual attributes. There were also 7 teachers (30.4%) who presented a psychosocial conception of deficiency, bringing elements that are not only intrinsic to the individual but consider the external factors as causes of deficiencies. From the 23 interviewed teachers, 3 (13%) presented an interactive conception of deficiency, admitting the role of audience and the social interactions in interpreting the deficiency. Generally, the teachers’ social representations about the deficiency are supported in a simple thinking without a lot of theoretic and pragmatic argumentations.

Keywords : Social Representations; Deficiency; Special Education.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )