SURDEZ: DESAFIOS E CONQUISTAS NA EDUCAÇÃO E NA SOCIEDADE

In search of a way to include all people in regular schools and to guarantee a quality education, government officials and scholars met at two major events: the first was the World Conference on Education for All, held in Thailand in 1990, and the second event was the Salamanca Conference, held in Spain in 1994. From this perspective, public policies were developed with the aim of accepting all students into regular schools regardless of their needs, but schools and teachers were given this responsibility without first being prepared for it. This ends up becoming a worrying situation, since students with special needs require specialized care and the simple determination of laws that guarantee access to public schools for all does not guarantee the quality of education. Students with hearing disabilities end up being disadvantaged because they do not have a LIBRAS interpreter in the classroom, and the simple fact that a deaf student is included in the classroom does not guarantee their education. Through bibliographical research, information was sought about the coexistence of deaf students in the regular education system. The need for teacher training to work with these students was verified, as well as for society to learn to live with differences. And for deaf students to truly have their autonomy, access to sign language (LIBRAS) and the Portuguese language must be guaranteed to promote inclusion and equal opportunities. This requires not only a policy that contemplates the school environment, but also the linguistic, cultural and family environment.