School Inclusion and Classroom Management: Challenges and Possibilities

Abstract

This article is a part of a study conducted with regular classroom teachers and multifunctional resource rooms’ teachers, who work with target-students of Special Education, which comprises, in Brazil, students with disability and global development disorders or high ability/gifted students. Through a participatory research with a cooperative counseling approach and using the focus group technique, we developed a study which objective was to investigate the teaching practices in inclusive classrooms and multifunctional resource rooms. For this article purposes, we will present data about classroom management aspects, presenting the challenges and possibilities emerging from one school inclusion experience. The participating teachers are from a medium-sized city of São Paulo state (Brazil), who works in the 1st cycle of the elementary school. There were discussion meetings with the teachers, which we recorded in video and audio with all the participants’ agreement, followed by transcription and data analysis. Results show that the teachers’ teaching behaviors are based in the concepts that guide them. There seems to be no doubt that teaching as a support to school inclusion should be the object of a critical analysis with the intention of generating a collective effort for a classroom management meant to facilitate the learning of all students, despite the fact of being identified as Special Education Students or not.