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.     

Emergence of a Unique German‐Israeli Academic Exchange Programme: Attributes and Dilemmas

This article describes a unique student exchange programme that has been operating for more than five years and which links students in the Department of Non-formal Education at Beit Berl College in Israel and students in the Department of Social Work at Fachhochschule Wiesbaden in Germany. The uniqueness of this programme lies not only in the co-operation between countries but mainly in the form of a professional study programme involving two educational institutions having different approaches and with different methods for the training of social workers that are embedded in different socio-cultural atmospheres and historical traditions. On top of these complexities, there was the need to cope with the question of how to rebuild relations between two societies loaded with the historical heritage of the Holocaust. The focus of this article is on the emergence and the development of the programme and on some of the dilemmas with which it was faced.     

Teaching and learning the concept of chemical bonding

Chemical bonding is one of the key and basic concepts in chemistry. The learning of many of the concepts taught in chemistry, in both secondary schools as well as in the colleges, is dependent upon understanding fundamental ideas related to chemical bonding. Nevertheless, the concept is perceived by teachers, as well as by learners, as difficult, with teaching commonly leading to students developing misconceptions. Many of these misconceptions result from over‐simplified models used in text books, by the use of traditional pedagogy that presents a rather limited and sometimes incorrect picture of the issues related to chemical bonding and by assessments of students' achievement that influence the way the topic is taught. In addition, there are discrepancies between scientists regarding key definitions in the topic and the most appropriate models to teach it. In particular, teaching models that are intended to have transitional epistemological value in introducing abstract ideas are often instead understood by students as accounts of ontological reality. In this review paper we provide science educators, curricula developers and pre‐service and in‐service professional development providers an up‐to‐date picture regarding research and developments in teaching about chemical bonding. We review the external and internal variables that might lead to misconceptions and the problematic issue of using limited teaching/learning models. Finally, we review the approaches to teaching the concept that might overcome some of these misconceptions.     

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.     

Consequences of learning about historical racism among European American and African American children

Knowledge about racism is a critical component of educational curricula and contemporary race relations. To examine children's responses to learning about racism, European American (Study 1; N= 48) and African American (Study 2; N= 69) elementary-aged children (ages 6-11) received history lessons that included information about racism experienced by African Americans (racism condition), or otherwise identical lessons that omitted this information (control condition). Children's racial attitudes and cognitive and affective responses to the lessons were assessed. Among European American children, racism condition participants showed less biased attitudes toward African Americans than control condition participants. Among African American children, attitudes did not vary by condition. Children in the two conditions showed several different cognitive and affective responses to the lessons.