Signification processes in the elaboration of knowledge by pupils with special education needs

Abstract

This study deals with the theme of inclusive education, and focuses on the educational practices oriented by significant teaching relations. We have as an objective to reflect upon the role of educators and peers in the face of the possibilities of development and learning of pupils with special education needs. We assume that the interactive subject elaborates knowledge about objects in processes that are necessarily mediated by the other and constituted by the language, by the dialogical functioning. We adopt the methodological principles of historic-cultural research, and we use as a form of analysis what is denominated micro-genetic analysis. We make use of a database composed of video recordings of pedagogical practices in a classroom and recordings of periodical meetings between one of the researchers and the teacher of an eight-year-old pupil of the first year of primary education who had global development delay. The results show that there was participation of the other in the activities proposed, configuring intersubjective relations which were not always harmonious, and different forms of connection between the teacher and pupil in the dialogical dynamics. The actions of the teacher acquired an important aspect when we recognize the relevance of her participation in the process of elaboration of school knowledge. We emphasize the role that the other takes in the teaching and learning process, and we clarify modes of action that can contribute, within the educational sphere, to make the teaching process significant also to pupils with special education needs.