Epistemology in the Formation of Special Education Teachers: an Essay on Teacher Formation

ABSTRACT:

this text aims to present considerations on the transformations suffered by the formation processes of Special Education teachers at the Special Education Course of the Federal University of Santa Maria/UFSM/RS. From a documentary research, with a qualitative approach, on the curricular syllabus of the course in different periods (1984, 1987, 2004 and 2008), a significant transformation in the ways of understanding the formation of the special education teachers is observed, from proposed documents and legislation related to Special Education in the perspective of inclusive education. In the curriculum analysis of the course, there is a significant reduction in the disciplines of political-pedagogical nature and in the disciplines considered in the health area and, as a counterpoint, a significant increase of methodological character in the formation of these teachers. It is concluded that there is a reconfiguration in the formation of Special Education teachers that enables them to meet the different demands of the proposed inclusive educational system: in a broad professional context, with a restricted political-pedagogical formation and understood as generalist teachers, with multiple practices in multifunctional contexts.

KEYWORDS:
Special Education; Teacher Formation; Epistemology of Education