Introduction

This article arose from the need to understand the relationship between the work of school management professionals and the inclusion of deaf people in regular education. This interest was motivated by the studies carried out in the discipline of Practice in Educational Policy and Administration, which is mandatory in the degree course in Pedagogy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ. In this context, the enrolled students learned about various aspects of school management, from conflict resolution to financial management, inserted in a formative trajectory of teachers and managers.

Thus, the various challenges that permeate the work of the school manager had moments of discussion and analysis, aiming to understand the various functions of the position. In the day-to-day life of schools, the school manager is legally responsible for everything that happens. The legal norms and guidelines in the field of education guide the work of the school manager, who must be attentive to ensure quality education for all. (^{PASCHOLINO, 2017}). Thus, the professional must be involved in the process of inclusion of students with disabilities, who have the right to attend the regular public school system, based on the condition of equality determined by the Brazilian Federal Constitution (^{BRASIL, 1988}). More specifically, the inclusion of deaf students in regular schools is a complex process that also requires the attention of education professionals involved in school management.

According to Decree No. 5,296 of 2004, hearing loss is characterized by bilateral, partial or total loss of 41 decibels (dB) or more, measured by audiogram at the frequencies of 500Hz, 1,000Hz, 2,000Hz and 3,000Hz. In other words, the individual with a hearing loss of this kind can, under Brazilian law, enjoy the rights guaranteed by the Magna Carta for people with disabilities. Among those rights, the legal guarantee in the educational sphere when inserted in regular quality education.

The city of Rio de Janeiro was a pioneer in the implementation of education for deaf people, still in the Brazilian Empire, in 1857, with the creation of the National College for Deaf-Mutes of both sexes. (^{ROCHA, 2018}). Currently, this institute has been renamed the National Institute for the Education of the Deaf – INES and still fulfills its social role in the training of people with hearing impairment. This historical moment denoted a concern for those people. However, it did not meet the existing universal demand.

UNESCO, whose acronym refers to the English-language name United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in 1994, promoted the Salamanca Declaration on Principles, Policy and Practices in the Area of Special Educational Needs. The publication represented a milestone in the fight for the education of people with disabilities due to the organization’s worldwide relevance. The document recognizes the urgency of ensuring education for children, young people and adults with special educational needs within the framework of the regular education system, calling on all governments to develop strategies capable of promoting the inclusion of all children – regardless of individual differences or difficulties.

In the Brazilian context, the first Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education of 1961 (^{BRASIL, 1961}) used the denomination of exceptional people to refer to people with disabilities. This law, in its article 88, already pointed out the need to insert those people with needs into the community. In this perspective, it affirmed that “the education of the exceptional should, as far as possible, fit into the general system of education, in order to integrate them into the community”. (^{BRASIL, 1961}, n.p.).

Education as a right is legally supported by the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988, which guarantees equality for all. The second LDB reiterates the position of care for all people, considering the concept of insertion in regular education, with the possibility of offering specialized support services. In the context of care for people with deafness in the educational field, Law No. 10,436 “provides for the Brazilian Sign Language - Libras and provides other provisions.” (^{BRASIL, 2002}, n.p.), making the teaching of Libras mandatory in some training courses. Thus, in article 4 of the aforementioned law it was established that

the federal educational system and the state, municipal and Federal District educational systems must ensure the inclusion in the training courses of Special Education, Speech Therapy and Teaching, at their secondary and higher levels, of the teaching of Brazilian Sign Language - Libras, as an integral part of the National Curriculum Parameters - PCNs, according to current legislation.

(^{BRASIL, 2002}, n.p.).

Several movements, both nationally and internationally, reflected on and demanded the inclusion of people with disabilities in regular education, and in Brazil it was based on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by Legislative Decree No. 186, of July 9, 2008.

In this logic, Law No. 13,146, of July 6, 2015, which instituted the Brazilian Law for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (Statute of Persons with Disabilities) guaranteed in its article 28, item I, the existence of an “inclusive educational system at all levels and modalities, as well as lifelong learning”. (^{BRASIL, 2015}, n.p.). Therefore, inclusion should be established in a perspective that effectively contributes to human formation.

Specifically for people with deafness, this same law, in item IV, regulated the “offer of bilingual education, in Libras as a first language and in the written modality of the Portuguese language as a second language, in bilingual schools and classes and in inclusive schools”. (^{BRASIL, 2015}, n.p.).

This determination also constituted an advance in terms of the inclusion of deaf people in the school environment of the regular school system: education professionals trained in the aforementioned courses would be better prepared for the coexistence and communication with users of Brazilian Sign Language, facing language barriers in education. To this end, the change in the curriculum of these courses may have had a positive impact on the work of educators who are qualified to act, among other functions, as school managers.

Those legal norms were fundamental to govern the inclusion process, but the difficulties faced by deaf individuals still exist. In this regard, “[...] According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 5% of the Brazilian population is made up of deaf people. There are about 10 million citizens, of which 2.7 million are profoundly deaf”. (^{RODRIGUES, 2022}). The most recent data from IBGE 2019 also specify that, in relation to the level of education, more than 1.5 million declared to have no education or to have incomplete elementary school, while only 300 thousand have completed high school. (^{IBGE, 2019}).

The situation demonstrates that the reality of deaf education still faces multiple challenges that can affect the permanence of the student in the school environment. In view of those findings, the inclusion of deaf people, when their right is guaranteed in regular education, is not enough to guarantee a complete and quality school trajectory. Therefore, it is necessary that the school reality of the deaf student be accompanied by the school management, which, as previously defended, must value quality education. The inclusion of a student with disabilities in the regular network modifies the routines of schools and, consequently, modifies the perspectives of the school manager’s work.

To understand the complexity of the manager’s work, we turn to ^{Fernandez (2016)} who, when analyzing the curriculum of the Pedagogy course, argues that it usually has little space for specific training – such as the area of management – developing generalist professionals with a focus on teaching. Thus, the author poses the question:

How to ensure the formation of a pedagogue who, as a professional, can satisfactorily face the complexities and specific demands for their performance as an educational manager at the present time, especially in the face of the demands of responding to both administrative-managerial and socio-political functions?

(^{FERNANDEZ, 2016}, p. 136).

In this same perspective, ^{Paschoalino, Croce, and Queiroz (2023)} emphasized that training must be continuous and capable of supporting those professionals in the face of the multiple challenges that occur in the daily life of schools. By understanding that training also takes place within the scope of work and the dilemmas that are presented, the school manager needs to be in tune with the other professionals in the school. With this understanding, the demands of the school manager’s work should be guided by “analyses and actions, resulting from an emancipatory dialogical exercise, to be concretized both in the academic scientific context and in the educational practices of schools”. (^{PASCHOALINO; CROCE; QUEIROZ, 2023}, p.5).

Among the various demands of the school manager’s work, inclusive education has come to have a different focus. The universe of pedagogical academic production includes many publications focused on inclusion in the classroom – such as the works of ^{Silva (2021)}, ^{Saraiva (2010)} and ^{Fischer (2019)}, which address the daily teaching routine in classes characterized by inclusion, with a main focus on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but there is not the same amount of research focused on management perspectives to inclusion in the school context.

To verify this, a brief search was carried out on the journal portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES): the search for the descriptor “inclusive teaching” corresponded to 386 results, while the descriptor “inclusive school management” resulted in 204 publications.

Within the context of school management and inclusion, it was decided to investigate an even more specific theme: the school inclusion of deaf students. The interest was due to the relationship of one of the authors of this article with the deaf community, with whom she worked as a volunteer in events such as the International Deaflympics. Inserted in a formative trajectory focused on the study of issues related to the education of the deaf, the researcher also offered introductory workshops on Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), a language recognized by Law No. 10,436/2002 and Decree No. 5626/2005, in state schools in Rio de Janeiro.

Seeking to understand the managerial conceptions regarding the inclusion of deaf students in regular education, a qualitative documentary analysis was developed to know possible publications that articulate the themes of school management and deafness in a formative process. In this text, six reflections are made, briefly described below.

In the first, the methodology is presented, which adopted a qualitative perspective in the development of document analysis. In the second, a small historical perspective of inclusion in public schools was outlined, based on legal documents and data provided by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE. Number three analyzes the conjecture of the school manager’s performance and then investigates the academic production involved with an inclusive school management perspective. In the fourth, the results of the research carried out on the descriptors on the CAPES periodicals website are exposed. On the other hand, the fifth part highlights a more in-depth debate on the results obtained. And, finally, we present the final considerations of the work developed and the possible repercussions that may reverberate in the academic field in which it is inserted.

Methodology

In order to understand the perspectives of the relationship between the work of the school manager and the education of deaf people in basic education, the option for a qualitative research made it possible to seek theoretical references for analysis. Thus, this was the methodology adopted, which enables “the set of human expressions constant in structures, processes, subjects, meanings and representations”. (^{MINAYO, 2001}, p. 15). In order to understand the complexity of the relationships that are articulated between the work of the school manager and the education of the deaf in the regular public school, documentary analysis was used as a research instrument.

We then sought to know the articles that associated the two themes: school management and deafness. And with this purpose, to understand the perspectives of school managers on the education of deaf students. The search was limited to articles deposited in the journal portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES). At first, the descriptor “inclusive school management” was researched, which resulted in 204 publications. From this number, a refinement by filters was carried out: only peer-reviewed texts published between 2011 and 2021. With the corpus defined for the study, a careful reading of the abstracts and keywords was carried out, aiming to map articles that dealt with the research question: only four were found.

Research

The journal portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) was selected for the research because it is one of the largest virtual collections in Brazil. Access to the content available on the portal is free, following the Open Access Movement, a global initiative that encourages the wide availability of scientific and academic knowledge, and accessible to researchers from various areas. From the choice of the collection, the investigation began.

The descriptor “inclusive school management” was initially used as a counterpoint to the descriptor “inclusive teaching”, which refers to teachers’ perspectives on school inclusion. In the new search, the use of the descriptor aimed to search the platform for all texts that could be involved with the issue of school inclusion from the perspectives of the management team: 204 results were found.

In this study, it was deemed necessary to use a tool specific to the platform that filters the results that appear to the researcher. The filters applied were “Peer-reviewed journals” and “Years: from 2011 to 2021”, whose motivations for choice are described below.

Regarding the first filter, peer review consists of the process of evaluating the text by researchers working in the thematic area of the work. Hence, it is considered a good measure for judging the quality of an article. In this sense, it was decided to investigate only the texts that were submitted to this process, aiming at a corpus of study considered appropriate to the academic environment.

The time frame, in turn, was established based on the conception that a decade is a pertinent period to understand contemporary academic production on a given subject. As the research was developed in 2022, it would not be appropriate to rely on the articles published in that year, since the research would not be able to cover all the publications in 2022. For this reason, articles published between 2011 and 2021 were chosen for the present study.

First, the peer review filter was applied to the 204 results found by the descriptor “inclusive school management”, resulting in 79 publications. Then, the time frame limited the search to 74 results. Based on this issue, we sought to determine which publications were related to the theme of deafness.

According to ^{Castro (2020)}, one of the main functions of the abstract of an academic production is to present the work developed in such a way that other researchers are able to judge whether the complete appreciation of the work is interesting to them. Keywords also aim to facilitate the identification of the main contents of a text for readers, as pointed out by Garcia, Gattaz and Gattaz in “The Relevance of the Title, the Abstract and Keywords for the Writing of Scientific Articles” (2019). The three authors have a defense similar to that developed by ^{Castro (2020)}, also stating that abstracts are inserted in academic productions as an objective synthesis of the content developed.

Taking into account the theoretical frameworks explained, the present investigation relied on a careful reading of the abstracts and keywords of the articles capable of undertaking the themes developed, in order to establish which ones addressed inclusive school management and deafness.

From the reading, it was discovered that four results were not truly articles, but presentations of journal sections that were cataloged on the platform as articles or other documents. In addition, it was detected the repetition of 22 files on the platform that, despite being exactly the same publications, appeared as different results in the initial search. After selection, 48 articles were validated for analysis.

Counting on the new issue, the abstracts and keywords were carefully read again in order to select only the articles related to the target theme. Finally, the approach of school management focused on deafness was identified in only four articles of the universe investigated. In other words, of the 204 initial results related to the search for the descriptor “inclusive school management” on the platform, less than 2% address the theme of deafness.

Source: LAGRANGE; ^{PASCHOALINO, 2023}.

Figure 1 Results of the investigation 

Analysis of results

The four articles identified are: “Democratic management and struggle for recognition in Deaf Education” (^{RODRIGUES; RAMPELOTTO, 2014}), “The teaching of geography and special and inclusive education: analysis of the methodology applied to students with hearing impairment in elementary school at the Prof. Coema Souto Maior Nogueira state school in the city of Boa Vista/RR” (^{PIMENTEL; SILVA, 2019}), “The evolution in the education of the deaf in Brazil” (^{COÊLHO; MIGUEL, 2020}) and “A study on the education of the deaf subject in the state education network of Foz do Iguaçu - Paraná” (^{ANGNES; MORÁS; REALI, 2016}).

Based on those results, a rereading of the abstracts and keywords of those works was carried out, aiming at a better understanding of the approach that the studies have in the face of the problem investigated here. The analysis allowed some considerations to be made in this regard.

The first article – “Democratic management and struggle for recognition in Deaf Education” (^{RODRIGUES; RAMPELOTTO, 2014}) – presented itself as a research related to the issue of inclusive management, presenting the term “democratic management” in its title, in addition to highlighting the teaching of the deaf. The abstract also indicates the concern with the theme: “This work seeks in democratic management some possibilities for the understanding of the struggle for recognition of the education of the deaf”. Meanwhile, the key words are “democratic management”, “education of the deaf”, “difference” and “struggle for recognition”. The work acts in two measures: it presents a general overview of the struggles of the deaf community and the education of the deaf and, then, it applies the knowledge rescued in a local analysis of a state school, focusing on the role of management. Thus, it was found that the article by Rodrigues and Rampelotto is deeply involved with the field studied, recognizing the existence of works focused on school management and deafness, which may encourage other researchers in the field.

On the other hand, the second article identified – “The teaching of geography and special and inclusive education: analysis of the methodology applied to students with hearing impairment in elementary school at the Prof. Coema Souto Maior Nogueira state school in the city of Boa Vista/RR” (^{PIMENTEL; SILVA, 2019}) – analysed different issues. Pimentel e Silva’s work aims to understand the methodologies developed in the process of teaching the discipline of geography to deaf students in elementary school in Roraima. The keywords of the publication are “teaching”, “geography”, “special and inclusive education” and “deaf”. Thus, it was observed that the work is not related to school management, addressing only teachers’ perspectives regarding the inclusion of deaf people, which is not the focus of the investigation developed here. It is believed that the article was highlighted as one of the results of the search carried out on the CAPES platform for the descriptor “inclusive school management”, due to the journal in which it was published. The name is “Environment Magazine: Management and Development”.

On the other hand, the third article – “The evolution in the education of the deaf in Brazil”, by ^{Coêlho and Miguel (2020)} – does not have inclusive school management as its main theme, but addresses the issue. While the keywords “pedagogical practices”, “education of the deaf” and “inclusion” do not refer to management, the abstract indicates that it is a review of some authors on the education of the deaf, among which are Vieira and Molina, who discuss the managerial role and are mentioned in the references of the abstract: “Vieira and Molina (2018) manifest themselves regarding the management and teaching of the deaf”. Still in the conclusions, the authors of the study return to the theme: “The results led us to believe that it is fundamental for the teacher and the entire school team to look at the special education public”. This demonstrates a concern to address the perspective of the teacher and that of the entire school team, which includes management.

Finally, the article “A study on the education of the deaf subject in the state education network of Foz do Iguaçu - Paraná”, by Angnes, Morás and Reali, is composed of a bibliographic review and interviews with managers and deaf students of three schools in the city of Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, Brazil, aiming to research how the school inclusion of those subjects occurs. The key words are “deaf subject”, “inclusion”, “managers and public policies”.

Thus, the work fit into the theme analyzed here, also bringing, in its abstract, a special mention to the role of school management in inclusion: “It is assumed that the school manager has a fundamental role in this context. This means that it is believed that it is through the management of a school that the example of educating in an ethical way and with democratic principles begins.” (^{ANGNES; MORÁS; REALI, 2016}). Thus, another research focused on the studied field was found, which also positively highlights the performance of the professional manager and its relevance in the inclusive process of deaf students in the school context.

Even so, it was observed that not all the articles indicated in the platform actually address the issue of School Management, although they appear as results in the search for the term “Inclusive School Management”, as is the case of the second article presented (^{PIMENTEL; SILVA, 2019}). It addresses only the teacher’s perspective regarding the inclusion of deaf people in the school context.

Thus, we return to the idea initially presented in the research, in which the search for the descriptor “inclusive teaching” on the CAPES platform corresponded to 386 results, while “inclusive school management” obtained 204 publications. When analyzing the results of the second descriptor, we initially concluded that only four addressed school management and deafness. However, when studying those publications further, we found that only three actually deal with the theme of school management, and one of those, ^{Coêlho and Miguel (2020)}, covers both the managerial perspective and the teaching perspective on the inclusion of deaf students.

From the final results, it was concluded that there is little scientific publication focused on the inclusion of deaf people and school management, which is the problem of the present investigation. The idea corresponds to initial expectations, considering that the theme of deafness is still a growing area in the academic field. In this sense, ^{Dall’alba (2020)} discusses the recent achievements of the deaf community in the Brazilian context and their impact on education.

With the Constitution of the Federative Republic (^{BRASIL, 1988}), a milestone in the history of Brazilian democracy, the Portuguese language was established as the official language of the country. It was only in 2002, however, that Brazilian Sign Language was recognized as the language of the deaf community. Through the Libras Law (^{BRASIL, 2002}), the education of the deaf became more structured.

(^{DALL’ALBA, 2020}, p. 133).

From the aforementioned law (nº 10.436/2002), Libras was recognized as an official language of the Brazilian deaf community, also ensuring its use in the educational process and, therefore, structuring the education of the deaf. Also in this sense, Decree No. 5626, of 2005, dealt with the promotion of an education for the deaf based on the linguistic policy of Libras as a first language and Portuguese in the written modality as a second language, that is, guaranteeing the right to Brazilian Sign Language in a school context. In this regard, the chapter written by Kelman e Silva in the book “Deafness: education, communication and inclusion” argues that

Libras is the most appropriate linguistic conductor for the majority of deaf people and should therefore be their L1, such a statement means that Libras must be on an equal footing with the Portuguese language in bilingual schooling processes.

(^{KELMAN; SILVA, 2018}, p. 223).

Thus, it is concluded that such achievements of the deaf community are recent and, therefore, still generate developments in the daily pedagogical practice, whether in a teaching position or in a managerial position. In the same way, the inclusion of deaf people is an issue that continues to gain space in the debates of the educational field, both in the school context and in the university context. Thus, it is relevant to emphasize the importance of addressing the described theme in multiple studies, considering the impact that scientific productions can have on different fields, contributing to knowledge, debates and knowledge exchanges.

Final considerations

In the book “Teaching to Transgress” (2013), the author bell hooks⁴ introduced part of her own school trajectory by describing a school that she remembered with affection: teachers, managers and staff were actively involved in the children’s community – aware of their personal contexts – and applied this knowledge in the school environment, in order to develop an affective relationship between students and the educational institution.

The principle of school management presented is linked to a school model that takes into account the particularities of its students, celebrating diversity. In this sense, when reflecting the inclusion of deaf students, it is found that the school should not limit itself to only receiving such students in its classes, it should also seek to understand their realities – the culture and the individual context they carry with them and apply the knowledge acquired in the school environment. Such a management model contradicts the ideas of some authors discussed by ^{Russo (2004)}.

The assumption, implicit or explicit, of these authors was that managing a school is a task equivalent to the administration of any company. To them, the school is an enterprise whose administration requires no special consideration, unless, of course, it takes into account its raw material – the pupil – which thus cannot be confused with screws, nails, or other objects of material labor.

(^{RUSSO, 2004}, p. 27-28).

In this way, it is possible to observe two opposing principles of school management, which see and train their students in different ways. The democratic management described by bell hooks can be considered a more favorable context for the education of deaf students, because in order for there to be a positive and concrete inclusion, it is necessary to understand the particularities of the subjects involved.

Including the deaf is much more than putting them in a classroom in the middle of everyone else. It is to provide learning, it is to value and stimulate the learning of their first language, Libras, it is to understand that the Portuguese language for this student will be the second language in written form. To include the deaf is to use visual didactic resources, social and linguistic exchanges. It is to develop an individual so that he does not become dependent, as many think, but rather possesses his language, his knowledge and daily possibilities of development and capture of what surrounds him.

(^{ROSA, 2012}, p. 155).

Thus, it is observed that the debates in the school context are permeated by different visions and interests that sometimes provoke conflicts. However, there is no point in trying to eliminate them. Its existence must be recognized and discussed, enabling the construction of collective strategies (^{PASCHOALINO, 2018}). Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the inclusion of deaf students in regular schools, a process in which the participation of the school manager is essential. In addition, it also discusses the different conceptions of school management, which directly affect the effectiveness of the described process. The expansion of academic productions in the area can provoke new debates and make explicit the existence of this issue, in addition to contributing to the preparation of education professionals.

Therefore, it is important to develop new investigations involved with the relationship between school management and deafness, collaborating with the development of truly inclusive practices in the educational field, which can count on the support of the entire school team.

The results highlighted in this article allowed us to affirm the small number of publications related to the research theme and, consequently, to highlight that the theme still has few scientific publications.

The process of continuity of research is constant and necessary, to the extent that each investigation promoted serves as an incentive to the productions of other researchers who, in turn, assume the same role before third parties. In this way, the observed reality of little academic publication in the area can be modified, consequently impacting the field of pedagogical action in schools, which is also composed of researchers.