ABSTRACT

The social model of disability and inclusive education are based on human rights principles. Based on a (neo)liberal logic, they assume education and human development as a way of eradicating poverty in a system structured by inequality. In a contradictory way, the achievements in this field make room for political dispute. Based on a theoretical and conceptual study, we have mobilized Vygotsky’s legacy in the field of educational psychology. We have examined the dialectical conception of disability and social education, which, when addressing the relationship between education and human development, point to the construction of a political and educational project referenced in the collectivity and social transformation.

Keywords
Inclusive Special Education; Human Rights; Historical-Cultural Theory

RESUMO

O modelo social de deficiência e a educação inclusiva estão pautados nos princípios dos direitos humanos. Baseados em uma lógica (neo)liberal, assumem a educação e o desenvolvimento humano como forma de erradicação da pobreza em um sistema estruturado pela desigualdade. Contraditoriamente, as conquistas nesse campo abrem espaços para disputa política. A partir de um estudo teórico-conceitual, neste artigo, mobiliza-se o legado de Vigotski no campo da psicologia educacional. Examina-se a concepção dialética de deficiência e de educação social que, ao tratarem da relação entre educação e desenvolvimento humano, apontam para a construção de um projeto político educacional referenciado na coletividade e na transformação social.

Palavras-chave
Educação Especial Inclusiva; Direitos Humanos; Teoria Histórico-Cultural

Introduction

The principles of human rights, which structure the normative documents, date from the post-war period, in the wake of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Such ideas were introduced into the international protection system, at the time, with the intention of leading to consensus for the formulation of a new global political order that envisioned the peace and stability of nations. Its universal principles are dignity and equity. Within this scope, the idea of dignity introduces into the international politics considerations about the economic, social and cultural conditions that are essential to a dignified life, changing the individual’s relationship with the State, which, from then on, has to propose policies in order to guarantee human rights (Piovesan; Silva; Campoli, 2014PIOVESAN, Flávia; SILVA, Beatriz Pereira da; CAMPOLI, Heloisa Borges Pedrosa. A proteção dos direitos das pessoas com deficiência no Brasil. In: PIOVESAN, Flávia (Org.). Temas de Direitos Humanos. 7. ed. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2014. P. 484-502.).

However, human rights, according to the principles of normative documents, lead us to tenseness and contradictions. On the one hand, the existence of an international protection system founded on human rights helps to regulate barbarism and establishes spaces for political disputes. On the other hand, although stability and peace are the purpose of the international protection system, it is denounced that the proposition of global policies can lead to national mischaracterization through cultural impositions qualified as imperialist, which can become a threat to national liberal democracies (Series, 2020SERIES, Lucy. Disability and Human Rights. In: WATSON, Nick; VEHMAS, Simo (Org.). Routledge handbook of disability studies. 2. ed. Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2020. P. 72-88.).

In addition to these points, Souza and Chauí (2014)SOUZA, Boaventura de Sousa Santos; CHAUÍ, Marilena. Direitos humanos, democracia e desenvolvimento. São Paulo: Cortez Editora, 2014. and Souza and Martins (2019)SOUZA, Boaventura de Sousa Santos; MARTINS, Bruno Sena. O pluriverso dos direitos humanos: a diversidade das lutas pela dignidade. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2019. make us reflect on issues that are intrinsic to human rights principles by problematizing them as hegemonic and conventional discourses of north-centric origin that silence the global south. Souza and Martins (2019, p. 16)SOUZA, Boaventura de Sousa Santos; MARTINS, Bruno Sena. O pluriverso dos direitos humanos: a diversidade das lutas pela dignidade. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2019. state that the “[…] global hegemony of human rights as a language of human dignity coexists with the disturbing discovery that the majority of the world’s population is not a subject of human rights, but an object of their human rights discourses”. Also, when dealing with individuals who are deprived of rights, Souza e Martins (2019)SOUZA, Boaventura de Sousa Santos; MARTINS, Bruno Sena. O pluriverso dos direitos humanos: a diversidade das lutas pela dignidade. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2019. emphasize that racism, sexism and oppression of people with disabilities are processes that structure inequalities and violence in contemporary society, alluding to policies that naturalize bodies and establish hierarchies among humans.

Considering that the forms of sociability of an economic system permeate the state political order and the legal form, in a society constituted by class antagonisms, we have assumed that rights are included in the normative documents of the protection system under neoliberal measures of minimum adjustments. According to Mascaro (2017)MASCARO, Alysson Leandro. Direitos humanos: uma crítica marxista. Lua Nova, São Paulo, v. 101, p. 109-137, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-109137/101.
https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-109137/101... , the conservation of the political structure of capitalism requires a variable process of affirmation and denial, guarantee and selectivity of human rights standards. The defense of social rights, freedom and human dignity is contingent in view of the movement for the protection and promotion of capital and its owners. Formal equality between individuals, which subsidizes the idea of a subject of rights, is institutionalized under the mercantilizing and privatizing principle based on highly unequal opportunities.

Souza e Martins (2019, p. 15)SOUZA, Boaventura de Sousa Santos; MARTINS, Bruno Sena. O pluriverso dos direitos humanos: a diversidade das lutas pela dignidade. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2019., when stating that human rights are today the language of human dignity, investigate the possibility of using such language in a counter-hegemonic way, building “[…] grammars of dignity out of the different senses of the human that emerge from the contexts that are experienced”. The authors propose the incorporation of different languages of dignity based on a

In other words, he encourages us to think about human dignity, development and education in order to dispute the meanings of the explanatory principles that underpin the formulations on human rights and social policies.

We position our study in this meander, of contradictions and disputes in the field of human rights. Based on the assumption that the concept of disability guides how one responds to it and affects the material conditions of life for people with disabilities and concerned with school education, we briefly problematize the concepts of social model and the so-called inclusive education, as described in the texts of international social policies.

Subsequently, from a first movement of approximation through a theoretical and conceptual study, we have mobilized Vygotsky’s¹ 1 The way of spelling the author’s name varies among different translations. We chose only one way in the text, but we preserved the different indications used on the bibliographic references. legacy on human development, in the field of educational psychology, to examine the dialectical conception of disability and its propositions on social education, forged mainly in the studies of Defectology. Based on this theoretical-methodological approach, when we assume dialectics as the movement, we proceed analytically to situate the concept of disability in the intrinsic nature-culture relationship, as well as to consider the historical and structural conditions and contradictions in the understanding of human development.

Even though in different historical, political and social contexts, the critical and progressive position taken in the Vygotskian discussion on disability is presented in contemporary times in an instigating and relevant way to contemplate propositions about the right to education for people with disabilities. With this study, we aim to contribute to the construction of a prospective and transformative vision in the debate on human rights and specifically on the education of people with disabilities.

People with Disabilities and Human Rights: social model and education

The recognition that the living conditions among people with disabilities is a human rights issue, in line with the international protection system, is quite recent. This legal and political structure, as we have already presented in the text, is of a liberal character, and is inserted in societies organized by values ​​and by the capableist ideology. We understand structural and intersubjective ableism as a product and process that structures and is structured by capitalism, which privileges certain forms of human in(corporation). In this sense, disability is understood as a phenomenon of the body and individual health and not for its ideological meaning that produces beliefs, discourses and social, cultural, political and economic practices of oppression and inequality, which are historically experienced by people with disabilities (Campbell, 2009CAMPBELL, Fiona Kumari. Contours of Ableism: the production of disability and abledness. London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.; Taylor, 2017TAYLOR, Sunaura. Beast of burden: animal and disability liberation. New York: The New Press, 2017.).

In the conflict marked by disputes between the ableism and political people with disabilities claims aligned to market’s demands leveraged by economic issues and the principles of UDHR, the living conditions of this group have been placed on the human rights field, with the monitoring of policies to tackle poverty, which pointed to the bidirectional relationship between poverty and disability (Souza, 2013SOUZA, Flávia Faissal de. Políticas de educação inclusiva: análise das condições de desenvolvimento dos alunos com deficiência na instituição escolar. 2013. 297 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2013.).

The document that summarizes the debate and the approach to the field of human rights is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted by the United Nations (UN) (UNGA, 2007UNGA. United Nation General Assembly. Resolution 61/106, of 24 january 2007. Convention on the rights of people with disabilities and the Optional Protocol. New York, 24 jan. 2007.) in 2006 and ratified by Brazil as a constitutional amendment in 2009 by Degree n. 6.949 (Brasil, 2009BRASIL. Decreto Nº 6.949, de 25 agosto de 2009. Promulga a Convenção Internacional sobre os Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência e seu Protocolo Facultativo, assinados em Nova York, em 30 de março de 2007. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, DF, seção 1, n. 163, p. 3, 26 ago. 2009.). This document is a specific treaty on human rights and is based on eight principles, among which we highlight: non-discrimination, disability as part of human diversity, accessibility, respect for the development and preservation of the identity of people with disabilities (Piovesan; Silva; Campoli, 2014PIOVESAN, Flávia; SILVA, Beatriz Pereira da; CAMPOLI, Heloisa Borges Pedrosa. A proteção dos direitos das pessoas com deficiência no Brasil. In: PIOVESAN, Flávia (Org.). Temas de Direitos Humanos. 7. ed. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2014. P. 484-502.; Series, 2020SERIES, Lucy. Disability and Human Rights. In: WATSON, Nick; VEHMAS, Simo (Org.). Routledge handbook of disability studies. 2. ed. Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2020. P. 72-88.).

One of the key points of the CRPD is the definition of disability as a philosophical principle that underlies the entire treaty. Most authors and documents advocate that the set of CRPD principles are based on the social model of disability. In this model, when shifting the impediment of the organic dimension of the individual’s body to the barriers that impact their social participation, there is an “[…] explicit recognition that the economic and social environment can be a cause or factor aggravating the disability” (Piovesan; Silva; Campoli, 2014PIOVESAN, Flávia; SILVA, Beatriz Pereira da; CAMPOLI, Heloisa Borges Pedrosa. A proteção dos direitos das pessoas com deficiência no Brasil. In: PIOVESAN, Flávia (Org.). Temas de Direitos Humanos. 7. ed. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2014. P. 484-502., p. 470).

With regard to education, it is proposed in the CRPD that the State should guarantee this right through the construction of inclusive educational systems and a series of principles and procedures that induce the preparation of policies referenced by human diversity. Such policies should focus on building adequate conditions so that people with disabilities are not excluded or discriminated against in regular, public and free education systems with equal opportunities, in order to maximize their learning and development potential at all levels. educational levels and throughout life. Among the conditions listed in the document, we highlight: architectural, attitudinal, information and communication accessibility; teacher training, including teachers with disabilities; promotion of individualized teaching given in different modes and means of communication (sign language, augmentative and alternative communication, alternative writing, among others); adequacy of environments that favor maximum academic and social development (Brasil, 2009BRASIL. Decreto Nº 6.949, de 25 agosto de 2009. Promulga a Convenção Internacional sobre os Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência e seu Protocolo Facultativo, assinados em Nova York, em 30 de março de 2007. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, DF, seção 1, n. 163, p. 3, 26 ago. 2009.; Resende; Vital, 2008RESENDE, Ana Paula Crosara; VITAL, Flavia Maria de Paiva (Org.). A Convenção sobre Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência Comentada. Brasília: Secretaria Especial dos Direitos Humanos; Coordenadoria Nacional para Integração da Pessoa Portadora de Deficiência, 2008.).

Souza (2013SOUZA, Flávia Faissal de. Políticas de educação inclusiva: análise das condições de desenvolvimento dos alunos com deficiência na instituição escolar. 2013. 297 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2013.; 2021)SOUZA, Flávia Faissal de. Desenvolvimento humano e educação das pessoas com deficiência nos documentos das políticas sociais e de direitos humanos no sistema da ONU: equidade, funcionalidade e tecnologia. In: NOZU, Washington Cesar Shoiti; SIEMS, Maria Edith Romano; KASSAR, Mônica de Carvalho Magalhães (Org.). Políticas e práticas em Educação Especial e Inclusão Escolar. Curitiba: Íthala, 2021. P. 26-38., when analyzing the social model of disability and education policies under the inclusion paradigm, as included in the set of international normative documents, states that they have as a central axis the notion of accessibility (impediments versus social participation). He also argues that such concepts are linked to the idea of human development, according to the propositions of the Human Development Index (HDI)² 2 The HDI, a composite measurement of levels of education, health and standard of living, is the main tool used by the bodies of the United Nations (UN) System as a parameter to assess the level of human development of people around the world; and planning, analysis and monitoring of social policies, especially those focused on poverty eradication. , and bring, within their scope, the notions of functioning and disability, proposed by the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)³ 3 The ICF, the conceptual model of the World Health Organization (WHO) for issues related to health and disability, assumes the biopsychosocial model of disability. However, its structure and explanatory principles allow capturing the concepts that make up the social model of disability. .

With regard to the notion of human development, at the time of the preparation of the CRPD, it was assumed by Human Development Report from the United Nation Development Programme, of 2010, as

In turn, the notions of functioning and disability in the ICF are seen as resulting from the interactions between health conditions and environmental factors, according to World Health Organization (WHO, 2001WHO. World Health Organization. Fifty-Fourth World Health Assembly. WH A54.21. Agenda item 13.9. International classification of functioning, disability and health. WHO, 22 maio 2001. Disponível em: https://apps.who.int/gb/archive/pdf_files/WHA54/ea54r21.pdf. Acesso em: 22 dez. 2021.
https://apps.who.int/gb/archive/pdf_file... ). And, in the social model, disability is a problem not only related to the individual’s impediments, but also a socially created problem that demands a political response.

Souza (2021)SOUZA, Flávia Faissal de. Desenvolvimento humano e educação das pessoas com deficiência nos documentos das políticas sociais e de direitos humanos no sistema da ONU: equidade, funcionalidade e tecnologia. In: NOZU, Washington Cesar Shoiti; SIEMS, Maria Edith Romano; KASSAR, Mônica de Carvalho Magalhães (Org.). Políticas e práticas em Educação Especial e Inclusão Escolar. Curitiba: Íthala, 2021. P. 26-38., by highlighting the concepts that structure the texts of policies in the field of human rights related to people with disabilities, analyzes that they are presented with the role of:

The idea of equity is linked to the idea of social justice according to the organization of the capitalist structure as a theoretical argument that, without requiring changes in the economic order, legitimizes the problems and contradictions that are intrinsic to this economic system. Thus, based on these notions explained herein, we can consider that, in the social model, as included in the normative documents, based on the relationship between functioning and disability, the bias of the impediment of social participation reduces the idea of accessibility to the removal of barriers by instrumental means of mechanical adjustments. Thus, because it does not consider historical processes of exclusion of rights and their cultural marks, it disregards the possibilities of social transformation.

Moreover, in comparison to the medical model, reviews have pointed out that the social model can induce, through other principles, the understanding of the historical, sociological and political character of disability, shifting the problem from the sphere of private life to the public sphere. Disability begins to be understood as a condition of life, the disadvantages of which do not have their genesis in organic injuries, but in the oppression of sociopolitical and economic systems. In other words, disability is then the expression of the body’s interaction with society, where impediments are signified in the conversion of social experiences, and thus it can be an expression of inequality (Diniz; Medeiros; Squinca, 2007DINIZ, Débora; MEDEIROS, Marcelo; SQUINCA, Flávia. Nota: reflexões sobre a versão em Português da Classificação Internacional de Funcionalidade, Incapacidade e Saúde. Caderno de Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 23, n. 19, p. 2507-2510, 2007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2007001000025.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X200700... ; Diniz; Barbosa; Santos, 2009DINIZ, Débora; BARBOSA, Lívia; SANTOS, Wederson Rufino dos. Deficiência, direitos humanos e justiça. Revista Internacional de Direitos Humanos, São Paulo, v. 6, n. 11, p. 65-77, 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1806-64452009000200004.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1806-6445200900... ).

With regard to education, the political proposal under the inclusive education paradigm induces important historical advances, such as the State’s accountability for the education of people with disabilities, the construction of policies that promote the education of said students, access to the community’s regular school, tensioning over the social function of the school and over the teaching and learning processes. Such characteristics matter as they make room for dispute over the social and political role of people with disabilities, calling into question segregating educational proposals.

However, not far from the role it has been assuming since the 1990s in normative documents, supported by the principles of the Human Capital Theory of a liberal-conservative and conventional nature, education is proposed as a central focus for the instrumentalization of the individual with disabilities, so that he/she can seek their development opportunities and, thereby, become part of future work activities. Therefore, the non-access to education, in addition to aggravating the situation of poverty, can represent a high cost for the countries’ economy, both due to the expenditure on social assistance and the lack of productive labor (Souza, 2013SOUZA, Flávia Faissal de. Políticas de educação inclusiva: análise das condições de desenvolvimento dos alunos com deficiência na instituição escolar. 2013. 297 f. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2013.).

Reiterating the non-transformative nature, Rodrigues, Nozu and Coimbra Neto (2019)RODRIGUES, Fernanda Martins Castro; NOZU, Washington Cesar Shoiti; COIMBRA NETO, João Paulo. Educação, direitos humanos e cidadania: fundamentos para a inclusão escolar da pessoa com deficiência. RIDH – Revista Interdisciplinar de Direitos Humanos, Bauru, v. 7, n. 1, p. 173-190, jan./jun. 2019., when addressing human rights and inclusive education policies, affirm that they are placed as a becoming, insofar as, although it is a prerogative for the construction of a more just and egalitarian society, it does not provide for the construction of a society where this system of protection is no longer needed.

Gentili (2009)GENTILI, Pablo. O direito à educação e as dinâmicas de exclusão na América Latina. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 30, n. 109, p. 1059-1079, 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302009000400007.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200900... , when looking at the processes of exclusion of rights to education in Latin America, emphasizes the abyssal asymmetry that separates the fundamentals from actions and practices in the field of human rights. He states that, while the proposal for an inclusive education is built in opposition to the political forces that historically have denied the poorest the right to education, it has been conceived in a culture that despises the human and in a privatist and economicist policy. Therefore, it does not lead to facing the processes that designate different opportunities in school and in life, reiterating educational inequality, pedagogical discrimination or, in terms of Vigorski (1995)VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Problemas del desarrollo de la psique – Obras Escogidas, v. III. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1995., pedagogical abandonment, and generating distinct educational expectations. As a result, it restricts the frontiers of cultural development of the personality in its maximum possibilities.

The questions raised so far point to contradictions in the field of human rights, which advocates the establishment of human dignity in a socio-political and economic system structured by inequalities. However, having a normative system based on human rights opens up possibilities for us to dispute a social and educational project aimed at expanding humanization processes. In this sense, we put the contradictions in perspective, in order to scrutinize spaces that provide opportunities for the construction of political principles oriented towards social transformation.

Vygotsky’s Historical and Cultural Conception: education and social transformation

We consider that, in order to understand the potential of the theoretical and methodological principles of Lev S. Vygotsky’s work, it is necessary to understand the historical significance of his theses and concepts. “It is in the difficult struggle for the transformation of social relations of production that their ideas, concepts, aphorisms, repetitions and quotes come to life” (Tuleski, 2008TULESKI, Silvana Calvo. Vygotski: a construção de uma psicologia marxista. 2. ed. Maringá: Eduem, 2008., p. 25) and mark our contemporaneity with a tone of originality and humanistic and revolutionary value. We have reviewed his writings and formulations in order to contextualize the conditions of production and put the inconclusive character of his works in perspective. We seek to problematize the set of Vygotskian ideas, understanding that his elaborations open (do not close) possibilities of conceptual formulation.

Living in a revolutionary context, founded on the construction of a society based on the socialist principles of equality and social justice, the Russian author is deeply involved in the process of social transformation. The study by Prestes and Tunes (2017)PRESTES, Zóia; TUNES, Elizabeth. Lev Vigotski, a Revolução de Outubro e a questão judaica: o nascimento da teoria histórico-cultural no contexto revolucionário. Fractal: Revista de Psicologia, Niterói, v. 29, n. 3, p. 288-290, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22409/1984-0292/v29i3/2597.
https://doi.org/10.22409/1984-0292/v29i3... shows the young scholar’s call to political party organizations and to the Jewish social movements underway, which demonstrates his engagement and positioning in relation to the political events of the time.

Building a public, popular, free and secular school was one of the main tasks presented by the newly established Soviet power and which were received by Vygotsky with enthusiasm and commitment. Vygotsky commits himself to the Ministry of Education of the former Soviet Union to contribute to the area of education for people with disabilities, known as defectology. He becomes a member of the State Scientific Council – Methodological Center of the People’s Commissariat for Education (Pino, 2002PINO, Angel. A psicologia concreta de Vigotski: implicações para a educação. In: PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (Org.). Psicologia & Educação: Revendo contribuições. São Paulo: EDUC/FAPESP, 2002. P. 33-62.) – and joins efforts in the movement to build the National Education System which would come to support the organization of public education governed by democratic principles, with a view to a single school for all citizens at all levels (Krupskaya, 2017KRUPSKAYA, Nadezhda Konstantinovna. A construção da pedagogia socialista. São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2017.). It is worth mentioning that, in the design of a society aimed at in that revolutionary context, there were no discussions on human rights, since human dignity was a principle already assumed in the accomplishment of the new social order. Education was deemed as a condition for the formation of the new mankind, therefore, assumed as an essential and transforming social dimension.

In the midst of that historical ambience, Vygotsky seeks to build a psychology that is oriented towards the formation of personality and human development at the interface with education. Such a proposal is made in dialogue with several authors of the time, from different epistemological currents, and founded on Marxist principles. As Shuare (2017)SHUARE, Marta. A psicologia soviética: meu olhar. São Paulo: Terracota, 2017. asserts, Vygotsky’s endeavor is to creatively apply historical and dialectical materialism to psychological science, opening a new path in Soviet Psychology.

Starting from the assumption of the social nature of the human psyche and assuming historicism as the axis of analysis, Vygotsky (1995)VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Problemas del desarrollo de la psique – Obras Escogidas, v. III. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1995. examines society as a constitutive instance of personality. It highlights the transforming characteristic of human productive activity, transforming nature and the human itself. In other words, it understands that human beings produce their own living conditions and constitute themselves in this process. Work is conceived as a mediating category of the human being’s relationship with the environment, through which it is possible to create and use instruments and signs (Pino, 2000PINO, Angel. O social e o cultural na obra de Lev S. Vygotsky. Educacão e Sociedade, Campinas, n. 71, p. 45-78, 2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302000000200003
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200000... ; 2002PINO, Angel. A psicologia concreta de Vigotski: implicações para a educação. In: PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (Org.). Psicologia & Educação: Revendo contribuições. São Paulo: EDUC/FAPESP, 2002. P. 33-62.), expanding the range of human social activity, which it enables processes of meaning that have consequences in the form of organization and expression of psychic functions. The historical-social development, therefore, marks the human race, since it supplants the biological functions transmitted by heredity. That is to say, the elementary functions of an organic and biological order are transformed into psychic functions mediated within the scope of social work.

In this sense, he draws up the General Law of Cultural Development, which consists of explaining how the development of the individual takes place intertwined with the historical development of humanity. In this perspective, “[…] man is a social being and, outside their relationship with society, they would never develop the qualities, characteristics that are the result of the methodical development of all humanity” (Prestes; Tunes, 2018PRESTES, Zoia; TUNES, Elizabeth. 7 aulas de L. S. Vigotski: Sobre os fundamentos da pedologia. Tradução Zoia Prestes e Elizabeth Tunes. Rio de Janeiro: E-papers, 2018., p. 90).

Education, specifically in its school form, is an essential element in the process of developing the psychic functions that constitute the personality. It is characterized as an instance that mediates the cultural development of the psyche. In other words, it is understood as a socially established way of access for children to scientific, philosophical, artistic, historically elaborated and systematized knowledge. The teaching activity, by supporting the conversion of social functions into personality content, enables the person to achieve the maximum properties of the human race and expand social participation.

So, we can say that the Vygotskian postulates point to the study of concrete social conditions for development, the mediated character of the psyche and the role of school education in this process. His legacy deviates substantially from the environmentalist and biologicist conceptions of development, which still circulate strongly nowadays by reference to the patterns of normality that oppress bodies that differ from the psychophysical type valued within an ableist, unjust and unequal social order. Under this form of social organization, the conditions of development are not the same for all individuals. There are structural limits established in the consolidation and expansion of the boundaries of social rights, including the right to education.

In view of this, we consider the potential of this theorization which, by synthesizing the historical reference of the development of humanity and by taking as a center of analysis the social universality that is present in the mediations that constitute each person’s life (Martins; Rabatini, 2011MARTINS, Lígia Márcia; RABATINI, Vanessa Gertrudes. A concepção de cultura em Vigotski: contribuições para a educação escolar. Psicologia Política, São Paulo, v. 11, n. 22, p. 345-358, 2011.), reflects in the accomplishment of a dignified human existence.

The Dialectical Conception: an explanatory model of disability

The study of disability goes through Vygotsky’s entire investigative process regarding the relationship between development and education. The development of children with disabilities is constituted by/constitutive of the historical development of humanity. In these terms, the set of texts gathered in the work Defectology Fundamentals expresses his commitment to thematize the non-conformities of typical development paths as a way to understand the development processes in general (Smagorinsky; Cole; Braga, 2017SMAGORINSKY, Peter; COLE, Michael; BRAGA, Lúcia Willadino. On the complementarity of cultural historical psychology and contemporary disability studies. In: ESMONDE, Indigo; BOOKER, Angela N. (Org.). Power and privilege in the learning sciences: critical and sociocultural theories. Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2017. P. 70-92.).

By taking on the nature-culture dialectics to explain the general laws of development, Vygotsky (1995VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Problemas del desarrollo de la psique – Obras Escogidas, v. III. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1995.; 1997)VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Fundamentos de Defectologia – Obras Escogidas, v. V. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1997. emphasizes the dynamism of psychic processes. Thus, he strongly criticizes the hegemonic conception of disability based on the medical-organicist model oriented towards biological reductionism. Without disregarding the biological basis, he opposes naturalistic and mechanistic views of his time and examines disability as a human condition of development that is deeply marked by social and historical dynamics. In other words, he understands disability as a phenomenon of socio-cultural development.

In this perspective, problematizing the issue of disability implies focusing on the child’s relationship with the social environment, which allows to substantiate the analysis of how the social situation affects the organic dimension, defining the processes that constitute the cultural development of the personality. In Vygotsky’s writings, therefore, we find the position that defectological science should have as its object of study not deficit, but rather the living conditions in which the cultural development that guides the personality of children with disabilities occurs (Dainez; Smolka, 2014DAINEZ, Débora; SMOLKA, Ana Luiza Bustamante. O conceito de compensação no diálogo de Vigotski com Adler: desenvolvimento humano, educação e deficiência. Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 40, n. 4, p. 1093-1108, 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1517-97022014071545.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1517-9702201407... ).

Vygotsky (1995VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Problemas del desarrollo de la psique – Obras Escogidas, v. III. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1995.; 1997VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Fundamentos de Defectologia – Obras Escogidas, v. V. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1997.; 2000)VIGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Lev S. Vigotski: Manuscrito de 1929. Introdução de A. A. Puzirei. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, ano XXI, n. 71, p. 21-44, jul. 2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302000000200002.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200000... , by placing the disability on the social plane of development, addresses signs and instruments as “social bodies”, produced within the scope of human relations/activity and drivers of the processes of organization and development of psychic functions. In addition to acting directly on the object, the human being acts indirectly. Or rather, development takes place through “indirect ways”, socially mediated and historically acquired by humanity. It means to say that culture guides the course of the person’s development, reflects on the content of the behavior, resizing it. Under this view, it is possible to understand the dynamic nature of the disability affected by educational processes, social mediations and the concrete conditions of life (Dainez, 2017DAINEZ, Débora. Desenvolvimento e deficiência na perspectiva histórico-cultural: contribuições para educação especial e inclusiva. Revista de Psicología, Santiago, v. 26, n. 2, p. 1-10, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-0581.2017.47948.
https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-0581.2017.4... ).

The author argues that, in the course of development, there is a fusion of the two lines of development, a natural and a cultural one. The cultural and the biological planes intertwine in such a way that it is impossible to dissociate them. In the case of disability, these two lines do not coincide, since the mode of organization of the social environment does not reach the diversity of the modes of constitution of the human being. That said, we emphasize the complexity of the disability structure, in addition to studying the sum of symptoms, the primary consequences linked to the organic dimension. The secondary consequences, of a socio-cultural nature, are thus brought to the forefront of analysis, action and intervention.

It must be considered that, if, on the one hand, the deficit can generate a driving force for creative human development processes, encouraging new paths, means and channels for development, on the other hand, depending on the way the social environment conceives and signifies disability, an aspect associated with factors operating in a given form of society organization, obstacles and barriers can be generated and interposed in the child’s relationship with the environment, producing processes of exclusion, discrimination and segregation. Disability opens (or does not open) new possibilities for cultural development depending on how society is structured in all its dimensions.

The tenseness between the concept of disability and the model of society stands out in the historical and cultural approach. With that, we can affirm that the valorization of a psychophysical type of person, which predominates in an ableist society, reveals the place of the norm as a principle that regulates social life (Martins, 2016MARTINS, Bruno Sena. Deficiência e modernidade: da naturalização à insurgência. In: MARTINS, Bruno Sena; FONTES, Fernando (Org.). Deficiência e emancipação social: para uma crise da normalidade. Coimbra: Almedina, 2016. P. 15-39.) and produces social, psychological, physical barriers to the development and cultural participation of those who, although they participate in social production, they are considered to be on the margins of this process. Both the potentialities and the limits of development are, therefore, situated and forged on a social basis.

Following this line of reasoning, Stetsenko and Selau (2018)STETSENKO, Anna; SELAU, Bento. A abordagem de Vygotsky em relação à deficiência no contexto dos debates e desafios contemporâneos: mapeando os próximos passos. Educação, Porto Alegre, v. 41, n. 3, p. 316-324, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15448/1981-2582.2018.3.32668.
https://doi.org/10.15448/1981-2582.2018.... define disability as a condition for extra-normative development that takes its course and its form in social and cultural practices. With this argument, the authors seek to advance on the conceptual plane by opposing a deficit view of disability and focusing on the difference in development processes. Extending this discussion, we emphasize the importance of considering the variability of human development, since Vygotsky seeks to explain the regularities of the processes by identifying not what is common, but what is divergent, variable. The point of view defended by Vygotsky is revolutionary and prospective because it values the variability of the person’s constitution and does not focus on the variant of a specific type of human.

Social Education in Perspective

Vygotsky’s elaborations in defectology studies offer a solid theoretical and methodological basis for thinking about special school education that still deserves to be explored nowadays (Gindis, 1995GINDIS, Boris. The social/cultural implication of disability: Vygotsky’s paradigm for special education. Educational Psychologist, Washington, v. 30, p. 77-81, 1995. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3002_4.
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3002_... ). According to Rodina (2006)RODINA, Katarina A. Vygotsky’s social constructionist view on disability: A methodology for inclusive education. In: Annual Conference of the European Learning Styles Information Network, 11., 2006, Oslo. Anais eletrônicos [...]. Oslo: LCHC, 2006. Disponível em: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/VygotskyDisabilityEJSNE2007.pdf. Acesso em: 22 dez. 2021.
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/VygotskyD... , the propositions of the aforementioned author can foster discussions regarding the construction of an education system, since it allows to overcome the historically constituted boundaries between regular and special education. This fact expresses the potency of Vygotskian educational premises nowadays, especially in the Brazilian reality that still faces the challenge of creating a National Education System (Saviani, 2008SAVIANI, Dermeval. Política educacional brasileira: limites e perspectivas. Revista de Educação PUC-Campinas, Campinas, n. 24, p. 7-16, 2008.; 2013SAVIANI, Dermeval. Vicissitudes e perspectivas do direito à educação no Brasil: abordagem histórica e situação atual. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 34, n. 124, p. 743-760, jul./set. 2013.).

In the 20^th century, Vygotsky (1997)VYGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Fundamentos de Defectologia – Obras Escogidas, v. V. Madrid: Visor Distribuciones, S.A., 1997. strongly criticized pedagogical approaches based on the assumption of learning incapacity of children with disabilities. Assuming that man is a set of social relations (Vygotsky, 2000VIGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Lev S. Vigotski: Manuscrito de 1929. Introdução de A. A. Puzirei. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, ano XXI, n. 71, p. 21-44, jul. 2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302000000200002.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200000... ), he argued that the conditions of human development are not limited to the organic-biological apparatus. Political, economic and social determinations demarcate the disparity in the access to forms of cultural appropriation and define the conditions for human development possibilities.

Based on the social education construct, defending a common public education that would guarantee the accessibility of school knowledge to the entire Soviet population, Vigotski (2000)VIGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. Lev S. Vigotski: Manuscrito de 1929. Introdução de A. A. Puzirei. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, ano XXI, n. 71, p. 21-44, jul. 2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302000000200002.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200000... argued that the teaching of children with disabilities should be strongly based on the same principles of cultural development, since the educational objective is the same: appropriation of cultural goods historically produced and accumulated. The means, resources, forms of support and pedagogical facilitation to mediate and conduct the student’s relationship with knowledge are different.

In this regard, by challenging the educational organization of his time, in which the student with a disability was deprived of the right to school education, Vygotsky (2004)VIGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. A transformação socialista do homem (1930). Tradução de Nilson Dória. Marxists Internt Archive, jul. 2004. Disponível em: https://www.ufrgs.br/psicoeduc/chasqueweb/vygotsky/vygotsky-a-transformacao-socialista-do-homem.htm. Acesso em: 22 dez. 2021.
https://www.ufrgs.br/psicoeduc/chasquewe... defends the transforming role of education in the person’s life and mentions the challenge of consolidating a Soviet educational system based on the principles of social education. He argues about the importance of rethinking special education from the perspective of social education, considering it to be the only way to achieve social compensation for disability, that is, carrying out fruitful teaching-learning processes that allow for raising the levels of organization and psychic functioning, enhancing the cultural and integral development of the personality.

In this way of conceiving education, the school content is interwoven with the principles of a life in society envisioned without class antagonism, the objective of which is the formation of human consciousness, the historical perception of reality and the development of emancipatory processes (Barroco, 2011BARROCO, Sônia Mari Shima. Pedagogia Histórico-crítica, Psicologia Histórico-cultural e Educação Especial: em defesa do desenvolvimento da pessoa com e sem deficiência. In: MARSIGLIA, Ana Carolina Galvão (Org.). Pedagogia histórico-crítica 30 anos. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2011. p. 169-194.). It presupposes taking work as a humanizing nucleus and the community as a locus for sustaining human life.

In effect, social education related to work activity, therefore, to life, is configured in this perspective as an instance of significant and prospective participation of the person with disabilities in human relationships and productions. By provoking the emergence of conscious ways of developing collectively organized and planned activity, it enables ways of effective participation in the multiple dimensions of associated life (Dainez; Freitas, 2018DAINEZ, Débora; FREITAS, Ana Paula de. Concepção de educação social em Vigotski: apontamentos para o processo de escolarização de crianças com deficiência. Horizontes, Itatiba, v. 36, n. 3, p. 145-156, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24933/horizontes.v36i3.685
https://doi.org/10.24933/horizontes.v36i... ).

When stating that “[…] an individual only exists as a social being, as a member of any social group, in whose context he follows the path of historical development” (Vygotsky, 2004VIGOTSKI, Lev Seminovich. A transformação socialista do homem (1930). Tradução de Nilson Dória. Marxists Internt Archive, jul. 2004. Disponível em: https://www.ufrgs.br/psicoeduc/chasqueweb/vygotsky/vygotsky-a-transformacao-socialista-do-homem.htm. Acesso em: 22 dez. 2021.
https://www.ufrgs.br/psicoeduc/chasquewe... , p. 12), the author leads us to think about the responsibility of the social environment in organizing educational processes that enable the opening of channels for human development. That is to say, an education that is a locus that potentiates the humanization process and a social organization based on a truly just and egalitarian social, political and economic system. It is through education that it is possible to apprehend and understand the world in order to be able to act on it, integrating the process of social transformation. The proposal for social education, therefore, contemplates structural changes in society.

Thus, the author presents us with an innovative and transformative educational project, which we have not yet reached in view of the conditions of social inequality, the economicist conception of education and work and the fragmented development of our school system, which is strongly marked by the presence of conventional global political proposals, philanthropy and business reformers (Freitas, 2012FREITAS, Luiz Carlos. Os reformadores empresariais da educação: da desmoralização do magistério à destruição do sistema público de educação. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 33, n. 119, p. 379-404, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302012000200004.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330201200... ; Gentili, 2009GENTILI, Pablo. O direito à educação e as dinâmicas de exclusão na América Latina. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 30, n. 109, p. 1059-1079, 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302009000400007.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-7330200900... ; Kassar, 2011KASSAR, Mônica Carvalho Magalhães. Percursos da constituição de uma política brasileira de Educação Especial Inclusiva. Revista Brasileira de Educação Especial, Corumbá/MS, v. 17, p. 41-58, maio/ago. 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1413-65382011000400005
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1413-6538201100... ; Saviani, 2008SAVIANI, Dermeval. Política educacional brasileira: limites e perspectivas. Revista de Educação PUC-Campinas, Campinas, n. 24, p. 7-16, 2008.).

In addition to integrating or including the person with disabilities in society, the act of educating, within the scope of social education, involves the person with disabilities in the web of the collectivity, constituting him/her as the subject of the activity and the creator of human development. Thus, it paves the way for the social and political participation of people with disabilities.

Possible Considerations

This text is the result of a first effort to approach and debate the problem of conventional human rights related to people with disabilities through the prism of the historical and cultural theory of human development. Since the emancipation of people with disabilities is still an epistemological and political challenge, we seek to deepen the dialectical conception of disability and emphasize the propositions of social education, with the tensioning over the social model of disability and inclusive education.

Based on the explanation given, it is possible to consider that the terms that constitute the principles of the social model of disability and inclusive education, according to the normative texts, beneath appearances, may be similar to the Vygotskian ideas on the education of people with disabilities. With this in mind, we inquired into the content and explanatory principles that support the terms under analysis, in order to dispute the meanings and discourses that permeate the texts of those policies.

When discussing the concept of disability, within the scope of human rights, we recognize the advancement of the principles of the social model compared to the medical model, for shifting the body’s impediments to the interaction between the subject (functioning) and the environment, demanding a political response to fight ableism. However, if in the medical model, accommodative to the disability, the idea of incapacity demands a clinical response to correct the organic dimension of the body; in the social model, which presupposes the removal of barriers and the instrumentalization of the subject, the accommodative relates to the socio-economic model of conventional global policies.

Opposing the hegemonic normalization processes of the early 20^th century, Vygotsky explains disability as a human condition of development, considering the interweaving between the organic and the social, biological and cultural dimensions. By assuming the dialectical relationship, which is intrinsically constitutive between subject and environment, we argue that, if the environment is a source of development (Prestes; Tunes, 2018PRESTES, Zoia; TUNES, Elizabeth. 7 aulas de L. S. Vigotski: Sobre os fundamentos da pedologia. Tradução Zoia Prestes e Elizabeth Tunes. Rio de Janeiro: E-papers, 2018.), it is also a locus of impediments. In this perspective, problematizing the condition of disability means questioning the human psychophysiological type desired in a given social order. The dialectical conception of disability, therefore, brings arguments for the political, economic and ideological resizing of the social environment.

With regard to education under the inclusive paradigm, we highlight the advances in the normative scope, of the State’s accountability for ensuring and promoting the education of people with disabilities. We also highlight the schooling of said students induced in regular schools. However, the elaboration of educational policies in neoliberal systems leaves the door open for proposals linked to the philanthropic and assistance-based private sector, that have a strong presence in Brazilian special education history (Jannuzzi, 2004JANNUZZI, Gilberta M. A educação do deficiente no Brasil: dos primórdios ao início do século XXI. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2004.; Laplane; Caiado; Kassar, 2016LAPLANE, Adriana Lia Friszman; CAIADO, Katia Regina Moreno; KASSAR, Mônica de Carvalho Magalhães. As relações público-privado na Educação Especial: tendências atuais no Brasil. Revista Teias, Rio de Janeiro, v. 17, p. 40-55, 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12957/teias.2016.25497.
https://doi.org/10.12957/teias.2016.2549... ).

Also, according to the conservative liberal logic, inclusive education is the key to human development, since its role is aimed at the empowerment of the subject and technical qualification for the job market. The idea is that education opens paths for access to other human rights, since an economically active individual is able to participate fully in the social and cultural environment, and becomes responsible for their development process, unburdening the State.

The social education construct, formulated in another historical context, is based on the idea of a single educational system, which overcomes the dualism between regular and special education. It presupposes the construction of a national education and social protection system that is intrinsic to a model of society. In this regard, the possibilities of human development are supported by the collectivity and by the social responsibility of the State.

Founded on the dialectical concept of disability, which provides for the power of education in the integral and cultural development of the personality, the proposal of social education aims at the appropriation of cultural goods that are produced and accumulated historically, referenced by social and labor work. The concept of education and work is founded on a transformative social vision, wherein social and labor work constitutes and regulates the human psyche. Thus, the purpose of education, within this context, is human formation oriented towards the individual’s unique contribution to the political and social development of the collectivity and the State.

Herein lies the main theoretical implication that points to the political responsibility of organizing a social and educational environment oriented to promote the creation of possibilities for humanization, with dignified living conditions, so that we can advance in the process of human development. The condition of disability must be seen as a potential motivator for the establishment of a new social order that is more just and egalitarian, supporting the access of each and every one to the human cultural heritage historically produced and accumulated. Therefore, we can say that school education, under this perspective, is shown as a fundamental human right that enhances emancipatory processes (Pino, 2002PINO, Angel. A psicologia concreta de Vigotski: implicações para a educação. In: PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (Org.). Psicologia & Educação: Revendo contribuições. São Paulo: EDUC/FAPESP, 2002. P. 33-62.).

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