Professora, quando eu vou me aposentar? a formação de pessoas com deficiência intelectual e sua inclusão no mundo do trabalho na Associação Pestalozzi de Goiânia

Abstract

This research investigates the education and training of people with intellectual disabilities with a view to their inclusion in the world of work. It is a qualitative study grounded in document analysis and interviews, from which the analytical categories emerged. The data produced and systematized were analyzed in light of a critical theoretical. The thesis was developed with the objective of understanding the historical constitution of vocational education and training for people with intellectual disabilities, as well as how it has materialized in institutional practices, particularly at the Associação Pestalozzi de Goiânia. In this regard, we discuss the historical educational trajectory of people with disabilities in Brazil, from their institutionalization to the emergence of a more inclusive perspective. In order to understand education and work for people with intellectual disabilities, we examine the first vocational initiatives and the development of training for work up to the present day. We also conducted a literature review aimed at investigating and understanding how the theme of training for work has been addressed in postgraduate research, using theses and dissertations as sources of analysis. The Associação Pestalozzi de Goiânia, the locus of our investigation, was characterized based on institutional documents and historical data concerning the first Pestalozzi Associations in Brazil. In our analyses, we identified that, in general terms, the education and training of people with intellectual disabilities, with a view to their inclusion in the world of work, is still organized according to the model of its initial initiatives. This occurs either because institutions lack the resources to invest in transforming their physical structures and staff, or because the conception still persists that people with disabilities must adapt (normalize themselves) to the demands of work and society. Thus, the research demonstrated that inclusion in the world of work does not constitute a linear process, nor can it be ensured exclusively through vocational training, as it is shaped by structural and attitudinal barriers that limit its realization. Nevertheless, we understand that only education committed to human development and grounded in a critical perspective can expand the possibilities for inclusion of people with disabilities, enabling them to occupy the spaces that are rightfully theirs, to recognize themselves as social subjects, and, together with other workers, to problematize the injustices and inequalities of this society and act collectively in the struggle to overcome them. In this sense, we acknowledge the importance of what has been historically constructed to enable people with disabilities to access the world of work. However, the right to work should not be restricted to a productivist perspective, but rather reaffirmed as a constitutive dimension of the human being, since it is through work that women and men constitute themselves. This should be no different for people with disabilities.