Students with Deafness in Brazil: Spaces of Schooling and Academic Production in Three Different Regional Contexts

ABSTRACT: This paper presents results of a research that had as objective to analyze the schooling of pupils with deafness, considering the educational and academic production indexes on this theme, in three Brazilian States. The interest in researching about this phenomenon is justified by the increased contemporary debate on the schooling of students with disabilities and by the changes in the Brazilian educational laws, which indicates that the schooling of these pupils must occur in the common classrooms of Regular Education. The study has a qualitative nature, and it was based on documentary analysis, combined with bibliographical revision and the search of schooling indexes. It was possible to identify that there were intense changes in the schooling of students with deafness, with the increase of school enrollment in Regular Education and the decrease of school enrollment in Special Education; this happened especially in the States of Espírito Santo and São Paulo, and with lower frequency in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Regarding the academic production developed by Graduate studies programs in Education in the different states, it was perceived that the themes investigated with higher frequency are linked to the changes that occurred in the contexts of reference of each program.