Special education reform in Brazil: an historical analysis of educational policies

ABSTRACT

This paper describes an histprical view of the legal and political aspects related to special education. It analyses the current and future perspectives that public and private educational institutions utilize to provide school services to individuals with disabilities in Brazil. Although Brazil has developed laws and provisions to guarantee the integration of students with disabilities into regular schools, this is not happening in most cases. In fact, Brazil does not yet have schools that consider the diversification of students’ capabilities as beneficial to the intellectual development of deficient and non‐deficient students. Poor teacher training and institutional conservatism constitute the obstacles to the implementation of innovation in this area. Most of the innovations seen today are the fruit of individual initiatives, such as the Project for Training Teachers to Integrate the Disabled into Schools (PROEDEM) and the Project for Using Computers in Special Education, that we describe. We believe that these new proposals will have a great impact on the education of students with deficiencies. This will raise the consciousness of educators and will help to transform the current conceptions and actions related to the education of people with disabilities, making possible the implementation of special education reforms.     

Soziale Integration durch Sport?

In this study the relationship between physical activity and different dimensions of social integration (number of friends, frequency of contact to friends, number of social contexts the individual is taking part in) is analysed using the data of the Partnermarktsurvey 2009. The concept of opportunities for interaction in foci of activity (here physical activity) is used as the theoretical framework. It can be shown that physical activity has an effect on the social integration of individuals: People who engage in physical activity have more friends, meet them more often and are integrated in more social contexts than people who are not physically active. Differences in social integration even exist among physically active people depending on the kind of sport activity and its form of organisation. Further the setting of the sport activity seems to be of importance. Finally it is recommended that longitudinal data used to investigate the exact causal effect of physical activity on social integration.     

Media Plurality and the Intensity of Readers' Political Preferences

In this article, the author studied the effect of the intensity of readers' political preferences on the news firms' incentives to choose between a single- and a multi-ideology strategy (i.e., media uniformity vs. media plurality). The author shows that alternative formalizations of the intensity of readers' preferences alter the equilibrium level of media plurality, given that they affect demand for news. In particular, when the readers' disutility of consuming news that differs from their ideal variety is relatively high for politically close news, the media firms choose a multi-ideology strategy, because the increase in demand is large. On the contrary, when the readers' disutility of consuming news that differs from their ideal variety is relatively low for politically close news, media firms choose a single-ideology strategy because a multi-ideology strategy does not significantly increase demand.     

I am not a jinetero

Phantomism is a juvenile social pathology that destroys the social standards set by the Revolution. Its catalyst was the severe endogenous economic crisis brought about by the international socialist plan. That plan created a dangerous socioideological tension in Cuba, which began a socioeconomic restructuring at that time, aimed at creating continuity for the socialist plan. Phantomism is expressed as a retrograde alternative and is reinforced by an alienated individualism that emphasizes consumerism. It is linked to a bourgeois ideology, which is contrary to the humanism of Cuban socialism.     

Yo no soy jinetero

El Fantomismo es una patología social juvenil destructora de las normas sociales concertadas en la Revolución. Su catalizador es la fuerte crisis económica endógena, originada como consecuencia del proyecto socialista internacional. El se conviete en una tensión socioideológico peligrosa para Cuba, que inicia desde ese momentoun proceso de redimensionarlo socioeconomico, encaminado a lograr la continuidad del proyecto socialista. El Fantomismo expresa una alternativa retrograda, afianzada en un enajenado individualismo y con enfásis en el consumismo, vinculándose a una ideología burguesa la cual es lo contrario al humanismo del socialismo cubano.     

Multilateral agencies and higher education reform in Latin America

During the last decade, the debate over higher education took up a significant space on the agendas of various international agencies, including multilateral development banks and other intergovernmental agencies. This fact points to the importance of the subject within a broader discussion that refers to national development projects and their articulation within the new international economic and political order. In this context, the purpose of this article is to discern the principal lines of argument at work and their implications for the transformation of higher education in Latin America. To this end, we have chosen four cases that we consider relevant for the region: The United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA) and the Interamerican Development Bank (IADB). In the first part of the text we characterize the particularities of each of these organizations, highlighting their relation with the processes of educational change. In the second, we approach the subject of the recommendations made by the multilateral agencies on change in the higher education systems in the world and, particularly, in the Latin American region.