O laudo como dispositivo de inclusão/exclusão na escola: analisando discursos de docentes da rede municipal de Fortaleza

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the effects of using diagnostic reports as a device for school inclusion within the municipal education network of Fortaleza. These reports have been required in various practices, such as school enrollment, registration in the School Census, participation in external evaluations of teaching quality (Inep/MEC), and access to Specialized Educational Assistance (AEE). The association of the diagnostic report, a clinical instrument, with pedagogical practices suggests that, although discussions on school inclusion in Brazil have advanced in recent years toward education for all—and despite official documents ensuring that access to inclusive education services does not require a report—the actual implementation of inclusion appears to be influenced by a medicalizing bias. The central research question was: What are the effects of using diagnostic reports in mainstream education as a device to achieve inclusion? Based on Foucault's theoretical framework, inclusion is analyzed as a biopolitical strategy serving population control and security, emphasizing the need to estrange or denaturalize established practices from a critical perspective. The research was structured according to the methodological principles of intervention research and Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis, divided into two phases: first, an extension course with 19 educators from Fortaleza’s municipal education network, and second, two focus groups with course participants. Both phases were conducted remotely between February 2020 and April 2022. The findings highlight four key dimensions of the diagnostic report as a device: (1) its connection to education policies governed by biopolitical management and biopower; (2) its association with the perception that students who deviate from expected norms must be “diagnosed”; (3) its function as a support tool for teachers; and (4) its role in educators’ appropriation of a clinical taxonomic grammar. The intervention research functioned as a device for problematizing the use of diagnostic reports in the context of inclusive practices. It is hoped that the reflections generated in this study will contribute to teacher training, stimulate discussions on educational policies, and lead to advancements in school practices, particularly benefiting those in the municipal education network of Fortaleza.