INCLUSÃO DE ESTUDANTES COM DEFICIÊNCIA NOS JOGOS ESCOLARES DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL

The Jogos Escolares do Rio Grande do Sul (JERGS) are a school sporting event that has been part of the cultural itinerary of the state of Rio Grande do Sul since 1970, when it was created at the Secretaria da Educação e Cultura do Rio Grande do Sul (SEC). Currently, the event is aimed at students from the state's public network, at the municipal, state and federal levels. For many years, students with disabilities did not have an effective space in this school event, which, at times, greatly valued the participation of students with the “athlete” profile. Therefore, the research aims to understand the process of insertion and participation of students with disabilities in JERGS. To achieve this, we determined Cultural History as a theoretical and methodological matrix for research. To access the past about the historical conformations of JERGS, information was collected through documentary sources and digital sources. The collected sources were subjected to the document analysis technique, based on the recording, classification, analysis and cross-referencing procedures. After analyzing and interpreting the collected materials, we found that the JERGS began to include children and adolescents with disabilities in an effective and duly regulated manner from the 2017 edition onwards, the year following the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The holding of this mega sporting event in brazilian territory may have encouraged the JERGS organizing committee to include sports adapted for students with disabilities in the event's modalities, almost 50 years since its creation in the state. Received: 2024/04/04 Reformulated: 2024/06/03 Accepted: 2024/08/04