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Teaching professionality; inclusive education; social representations.
The inclusion of people with disabilities has been a recurring theme since the 1980s from a
social inclusion perspective. It has been addressed within the educational context and widely
discussed in contemporary democratic societies since the 1990s, beginning with the "World
Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs", a document organized and
published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
during the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien. From then until the present day,
these discussions have been present in schools, universities, and other educational and social
spaces, proving essential for achieving a truly equitable society. Furthermore, this defense of
human rights and people with disabilities is embedded in the global action plan designed by the
United Nations (UN) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically under
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 - Quality Education - to ensure inclusive and equitable
quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Within this context, the
Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) established its Inclusion and Accessibility
Policy in 2019 and updated it in 2022, in accordance with RESOLUÇÃO CONJUNTA Nº.
002/2022- CONSEPE/CONSAD, dated May 10, 2022. Knowing that the feasibility of the
aforementioned Policy in the academic environment, especially within the teaching dimension,
is crucial, as its principles, objectives, and guidelines materialize through teaching practices,
this study aims to investigate whether there are social representations concerning the Inclusion
and Accessibility Policy and its articulations within the professionality of UFRN professors
from an inclusive education perspective. This research adopts a qualitative, phenomenological,
exploratory, documentary, and bibliographic approach. To this end, the Theory of Social
Representations (TSR) under the Structural Approach/Central Core Theory (CCT) is adopted
as the theoretical-methodological framework, grounded in authors such as Moscovici (2007),
Jodelet (2001), Abric (1998), Sá (1998), and Melo (2023, 2024). Data collection was conducted
using the Free Word Association Technique (FWA), structured questionnaires, and semi
structured interviews, while data analysis was performed through Bardin’s Content Analysis
(2020) and the Representational Spiral System (SER). As results, the study identifies social
cognitions expressed through perceptions and attributions of senses, meanings, and values
(social representations) by Higher Education and Basic, Technical, and Technological
Education (EBTT) professors regarding the aforementioned Inclusion and Accessibility Policy.
This highlights the cognizing process of anchoring around the evoked terms "necessary" and
"important," simultaneously revealing its objectification process and links with the pursuit of a
teaching professionality geared toward inclusive education.