2.1 The teachers

When reading the selected works, we noticed that the teacher referred to can be grouped in the following denominations: SE teacher, specialized/specialist teacher, special education teacher, inclusive education teacher and teacher of Specialized Educational Service. Even though most of the authors did not present the definitions and the reason why they use these terminologies to refer to this specific teacher, we observed that there are similarities about the characteristics, but there are also divergences.

The SE teacher, to the authors selected in this survey of academic productions, is synonymous with the specialized/specialist teacher. The definition is anchored in the requirement of education to work with students of Special Education established by the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional - LDBEN) No. 9,394, of December 20, 1996 (^{Lei nº 9.394, 1996}), which provides for education at the middle or higher level in Special Education or graduate studies.

It should be noted that many authors have highlighted the characteristics of the SE teachers based on their education; among them, the difference between general or specialized education. The general education would be that which contemplates the basic contents of teaching and those specific to Special Education; the specialized education that directs towards a certain type of disability based on the analyzes of ^{Bueno (1999)}, ^{França (2008)} and ^{Siems (2009)}. ^{Regiani (2009)} uses the term specialist teacher in Special Education from the generalist perspective, that is, teacher with specialization Latu Sensu in Special Education focusing on all the disabilities. There are two approaches to general education: the one that includes a teaching base and specific knowledge and one that provides knowledge about all the disabilities. However, ^{Redig (2010)} highlights the term generalist teacher¹² as regent of the regular classroom and specialist teacher as the one that works with the target public student of Special Education, respectively.

The study on education was one of the most recurrent methodologies of the work on the teacher of SE or specialized/specialist, the great majority in the perspective of the courses of initial/continuing education as conditioner for the effectiveness of the proposal of inclusion. ^{Lino (2006, p. 36)} emphasizes: “Well-educated and trained specialist teachers from the perspective of inclusion are key pieces in the inclusive school link”.

With the reading of the selected papers, it was possible to observe that some of them resorted to the analysis about the lack of education or this being insufficient and detached from the reality in the schools, formulated externally to the interests of the teachers. Or, to others, the teacher education to work with Special Education is seen as positive, since it empowers teachers for inclusive education, as is the case of ^{Petrechen (2006)}, that, by focusing on the work of the “teacher of mentally handicapped” in the state of São Paulo, indicates his conception about the education when stating that he follows the assumptions of his research group Human Resources Education in Special Education (GP-FOREESP)¹³: “A policy of teacher education is one of the pillars for the construction of school inclusion” (^{Petrechen, 2006}, p. 21).

Education as a condition for the success of Special Education in the inclusive perspective induces the inference that the education courses should be directed to the process of school inclusion. In this sense, the teacher with the focus on “inclusive education” (^{Dias et al., 2015}) would be responsible for its implementation in regular schools. The teacher responsible for inclusion, for these authors, is not necessarily the SES teacher, but the one who has the education to work with Special Education students. Authors such as ^{Prieto (2006)} emphasize the education, but warn not to fall back on the responsibility of the Special Education students only to the specialized teachers.

Many authors mentioned the SES teacher as synonymous with SE teacher. ^{Zerbato (2014)}, when listing the assignments of the SE teacher, cites the requirements concerning the SES teacher. To ^{Silva (2008)}, the teacher of multifunctional resource rooms is called Specialized Support Teacher (SST).

^{Dorneles (2013)} presents, in her research, how the discourses produced in the Special Education policy in the inclusive perspective induce the pedagogical practices of SE teachers for SES teachers. In the same perspective, ^{Mercado (2016)} points out that the process of reconversion of SE teacher to SES teacher, without proper conditions, such as, for example, an adequate education, reinforces its deprofessionalization.

^{D’Agostini (2011)} differentiates herself when working with the teacher of the special teaching, the one that works in the schools or specialized institutions. It was not the case of ^{Dorziat (2010)} who presented this terminology as synonymous with SE teacher in regular schools. Another strong feature of the studies that addressed the SE teacher and/or specialized/specialist teacher were his/her attributions and his/her locus of action.

From the selected researches, ^{Camargo and Sarzi (2012)}, ^{Vilaronga (2014)} and ^{Zerbato (2014)} indicated in their titles and abstracts that they were researching the SE teacher in duo teaching, teaching or collaborative teaching. The conceptualization of these three ways of naming the SE teacher’s work together with the regular classroom teacher are similar to the authors. To ^{Zerbato (2014, p. 38)}: “Co-teaching is a service of support to school inclusion also known as collaborative teaching and involves a partnership between Special Education teachers and the common classroom (...)”.

^{Vilaronga (2014, p. 179)} emphasizes that “collaborative teaching is one of the necessary supports to strengthen the proposal of school inclusion (...), and collaboration between the Special Education professional and the classroom essential for the construction of this inclusive space (…)”.

The previously mentioned citations demonstrate the conception around the teacher of SE that acts in the regular classrooms in the proposal of the collaborative teaching. Special Education is proposed as a service of school inclusion (^{Zerbato, 2014}), in which the SE teacher will act in support with a view to the implementation of school inclusion (^{Vilaronga, 2014}), being the school teaching not his/her responsibility¹⁴.

However, other authors have also addressed this theme, such as: ^{Lino (2006)}, ^{França (2008)}, ^{Redig (2010)} and ^{Freitas (2013)}. ^{Lino (2006)}, in the perspective of support and assistance, states that “specialist teachers serve as intermediaries between teachers and students with disabilities, enabling them to understand their needs and particularities” (^{Lino, 2006}, p. 35). If the SE teacher serves as an intermediary, as a means to the regent teacher, can we infer that this idea reinforces the conception of SE teacher as a resource?

As we can see, the concepts of collaborative and cooperative teaching are used as synonyms, since, from the perspective of the authors, both express the work of the SE teacher as support or as the intermediary in the regular classroom. At the same time that they put themselves as an alternative to the policy model with the SES teacher, the essence of these teachers’ characteristics is similar. In this way, it is a pedagogical face of the political dispute around the conception of SE teacher.

The selected works that were articulated in this item also present other denominations for this specific teacher. In addition, they have brought important elements to think about the conception of hegemonic SE teacher in the field of knowledge. It is interesting to note that most of the works did not demonstrate the conception of teacher as one who teaches school knowledge; on the contrary, in the course of their research they reinforced the idea of a teacher who acts in support of inclusion or the teacher of the regular classroom, even those who thought this teacher inside the regular classrooms in a joint work. This was not characterized by the teaching of school content, but as a resource of inclusive perspective policy. Only the work of ^{Padilha (2012)} presents an analysis of these characteristics related to the conditions that are presented to these teachers, both with the objectives of a disqualified education and with conditions and precarious work contracts.

The teacher conception of this axis allows us to consider that the teacher terminology used by them is characterized essentially by the education they present and as one more teacher who joins a multiprofessional team for the supposed success of inclusion in school. The teacher referred to here does not assume the role that we understand to be the main characteristic - to teach school knowledge, and corroborates with the proposal of teacher expressed in the policies of Special Education in the inclusive perspective, which incorporates in this teacher elements of management and technical work to the detriment of school content teaching (^{Vaz, 2013}).

2.2 The professionals

Many of the authors selected, when talking about the SE teacher, used the terminology “professional education”, as ^{Freitas (2013)} did. Other authors have also used this expression, but as a complement to the terms teacher or educator (^{Siems, 2009}; ^{Dorziat, 2010}; ^{Baptista, 2011}; ^{Padilha, 2012}; ^{Vilaronga, 2014}). Although they do not specify the meaning of this terminology or present any difference in relation to the term teacher, we can indicate in their analyzes that there is a direction of meaning for the performance of these teachers.

To ^{Freitas (2013)}, the “support teacher for inclusion” is another professional that aggregates the other school employees with the goal of contributing to the inclusive perspective. According to the author:

The work of education professionals has become a fundamental condition for education and inclusion of students with special educational needs. Support for these students has raised the discussion about the relationship between Regular Education and Special Education: it involves debate about the need to develop an articulated action between the different educational agents (^{Freitas, 2013}, p. 22).

The “support teacher for inclusion”, cited by ^{Freitas (2013)}, is much more focused on inclusion than on the regent teacher or the students. In this case, the SE teacher is also configured as a resource for inclusion in the regular school. The term “inclusive education” brings together a diversity of discourses, such as: recognition of rights, combating prejudice and discrimination, overcoming inequalities; however, these precepts are not exclusive to Special Education. The term “inclusive education” in this case obscures what is specific to Special Education and assists in imprecision about the SE teacher.

^{Dorziat (2010)} addresses professionals for inclusion as SE teachers, those with “knowledge” needed to work with Special Education students. ^{Siems (2009)} analyzes the teacher as a professional category, in the sense of their professionalization, that is, the teacher is a professional. The author analyzes the identity constitution of the professional that works with students with disabilities.

In the sense of the practice of these teachers, ^{Baptista (2011)}, when elaborating analyzes on the teacher that works beyond the classroom, whether in regular teaching or in multifunctional resource rooms, states that if there is no integrated work among professionals, the relationships that are established in the school will not have much effect in the work of this teacher, except to reproduce old segregating practices of the Special Education.

There is a certain consensus in the scholarly research selected around the speeches about the SE teacher in collaborative work, co-teaching, support, integrated work or as an intermediary between the regent teacher and the student with a disability. It should be noted that, in these studies, this specific teacher is seen as a support, most of the time, for the effectiveness of the proposal of school inclusion, not being evidenced his/her performance with the teaching of school contents. Two issues can be raised: 1) the proposal of the Special Education policy in the inclusive perspective exercises the hegemony over the conception of Special Education as a service and no more modality of teaching, in order to pass on the analyzes on the SE teacher of the selected works; 2) the emphasis on the work of this teacher within the regular classrooms, while representing an advance in the discussions about the SES teacher, is restricted to the way in which the proposal of his/her work will be conducted, or to the locus where it will be carried out, not the content of his/her performance; in this way, the objective of the teacher’s work in focus in the regular school does not change. The proposal of collaborative teaching is centered on the presence of the SE teacher in the regular classroom, but on the same criteria of work proposed by the policy in exalting the SES teacher.

In another aspect, ^{Padilha (2012)} analyzes the constitution of the teaching profession of the SE teacher of the state of São Paulo (SP) and, in this sense: “The education professional is the one who develops his/her work with criticality and autonomy, that is, conceives it, executes it, and evaluates it through his or her experience” (^{Padilha, 2012}, p. 189). However, to the author, the relations imposed on the school prevent the effective work with the teaching-learning relationship of these teachers and students.

It can be said that the professional development of Special Education teachers with the history of philanthropy in the area, benevolent actions, donation, among other presuppositions, nowadays contrast with different conditions of the world of work in the twentieth century. These labor intensification constraints, value added at the cost of the workforce, are underpinning the work of these teachers in public schools in SP (^{Padilha, 2012}, p. 184).

There is in the works the identification of the need of a team to work with the Special Education students, that is, professionals involved, of which the Special Education professional is a part. According to this analysis, the SE teacher is on the same level as other health professionals and assistance within the regular schools. Therefore, Special Education in the regular school does not necessarily gain the character of school education when entering this space, but it is added to the vision of Special Education as assistance, present throughout its history.

As we can see, the works that approached this axis were for reflections on the profession category teacher of the Special Education teacher and the construction of the identity of this professional as part of a team in favor of the school inclusion of the target public students of Special Education. We can hypothesize that the term “Special Education professionals”, in most cases, refers to the equation of school professionals, and can be attributed to an analysis of the emptying of the genesis of being a teacher to the SE teacher.

2.3 The educators

Although the minority of the selected works mentioned the teacher of SE as an educator (^{Baptista, 2011}; ^{D’Agostini, 2011}), we verified the relevance of this axis to understand the differences that are established between the two. As we have seen, the nomenclatures used are mainly based on a type of education and, in this specific case, there is the discussion about the initial education to work with the students of the Special Education, in the courses of teaching degree in Special Education that graduate the special educator.

^{Baptista (2011)} used more than one term to name the same teacher and presented the concept of “educator specializing in Special Education or special educator”. The author states:

I am considering specialized educator in special education or special educator those with specific education: degree course in the area; in pedagogy, with specific qualification; specialization course or complementary studies. This plurality of education dimensions is guaranteed by current legislation, which does not specifically define a trajectory (^{Baptista, 2011}, p. 1).

To ^{Baptista (2011)}, the Educator is clearly another type of professional that goes beyond the functions of teacher, must include attributions of management of the inclusion in the school and the joint work to the other teachers. The author affirms that we should think of the action of this teacher beyond the classroom, but as an articulator of the inclusion of the school, as: “The corrective and ‘reparative’ dimension can permeate the counseling, duo teaching, work with other interlocutors” (^{Baptista, 2011}, p. 5). ^{D’Agostini (2011)} does not differentiate teacher and educator when elaborating her work on the conception of special school educators about inclusion.

In this sense, Special Education educators have the same characteristics of SE teachers and the professional that works with Special Education students. Although ^{Baptista (2011)} differentiates teacher from educator, when we verified the conception of SE teacher of the other authors of this survey, they resemble the educator’s conception cited by the author. The SE teacher, in this case, is responsible for inclusion in schools and for working together with other professionals. The conception of “Special Education educator” expands the duties of teacher and, at the same time, restricts the act of teaching school contents. According to ^{D’Agostini (2011)}, “the educator is not a mere instructor”. We can conclude that the authors of this survey of academic productions claim the work of this specific teacher inside the regular schools, at the same time that they disfigure the very concept of being a teacher.

These indeterminations about the terminology used in reference to the SE teacher may point to a conception on the agenda. For what is indicated, although the authors name the teacher of SE in different ways, the conception of teacher seems to be based on the idea of an educator with an extension of his/her work in the school to the detriment of the act of teaching beyond the adapted resources, which brings us to the discussion of polyvalence and the multifunctional teacher (^{Vaz, 2013}). In this way, we can show, with this survey of academic productions, that the terminologies about this teacher are anchored in the conception of a widespread teacher; thus, the different designations are related to disputes over the technical-pedagogical side of the educational project.