Trajetórias escolares de alunos surdos e/ou com deficiência auditiva na educação básica: um estudo longitudinal de 2008 a 2023 no município de João Pessoa

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the materialization of national educational policies aimed at ensuring access, retention, and completion of Basic Education for deaf students and/or students with hearing impairment in the municipality of João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil, from 2008 to 2023. The study is grounded on the assumption that, although the Brazilian legal framework has significantly advanced in recognizing the educational rights of this population especially through the strengthening of inclusive education and bilingual education perspectives structural and institutional challenges continue to limit the effective implementation of these rights throughout students’ educational trajectories. The guiding research problem seeks to understand how inclusive and bilingual policies have contributed, in terms of access, retention, and completion, to the educational trajectories of thirteen cohorts of deaf students enrolled in Basic Education in João Pessoa (PB) in 2008 and followed until 2023. The general objective was to analyze these students’ educational trajectories, identifying patterns of regularity, irregularity, and interruption, as well as the impacts produced by educational policies throughout the period under investigation. Methodologically, this is a quantitative longitudinal study based on the analysis of microdata from the School Census produced by the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep). Enrollment tracking was conducted through the Protected Data Access Service (Sedap), enabling the individual monitoring of 183 students identified as deaf and/or with hearing impairment, distributed across thirteen cohorts, from Early Childhood Education to the third year of Upper Secondary Education. The variables analyzed included promotion, grade repetition, dropout, migration to Youth and Adult Education (EJA), and completion of Basic Education. The typologies of educational trajectories regular, slightly irregular, highly irregular, and interrupted were developed based on the proposal by Souza, Senkevics, and Rodrigues (2024), allowing the classification and description of school pathways over time. In addition, a documentary analysis of the normative framework supporting Brazilian educational policy was carried out, highlighting the Federal Constitution of 1988, the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB), the National Education Plan (PNE 2014–2024), the Brazilian Inclusion Law (LBI), Decree No. 5.626/2005, and Law No. 14.191/2021. This analysis discusses tensions between the context of policy production and the context of practice, revealing contradictions between legal advances and operational limitations in policy implementation within education systems. The results indicate that, although formal access to mainstream schooling has expanded, the educational trajectories of deaf students and/or students with hearing impairment remain marked by high levels of age-grade distortion, grade repetition, and dropout, particularly during transitions between educational stages, especially from lower secondary education to upper secondary education. Access has not consistently translated into sustained retention and completion, pointing to weaknesses in the implementation of inclusive and bilingual education policies, particularly regarding the pedagogical, linguistic, and institutional conditions required to guarantee the right to education. This dissertation contributes to the advancement of longitudinal studies on deaf education in Brazil by providing empirical evidence that highlights the gap between rights ensured at the normative level and the actual conditions of schooling. By exposing the limits of formal universalization, the study reinforces the need for public policies that articulate access, retention, meaningful learning, and completion, ensuring the full educational experience of deaf students within Basic Education.