Special and inclusive education in World Bank and UNESCO documents after the 2008 world crisis: political guidelines for Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the policy guidelines of the World Bank (WB) and UNESCO for special education and inclusive education, in basic education, for Brazil, from the context of the global crisis of 2008 to the crisis resulting from the pandemic of covid-19. This is a documentary and qualitative analysis anchored in historical and dialectical materialism and in the understanding that educational policy documents are products and producers of reality and express the interests of social groups in disputes. It examines the 2008 and covid-19 crises as integral parts of the structural crisis of capital and, therefore, as aggravating factors of such crisis. It conceives the WB and UNESCO guidelines for special and inclusive education, specific or not for Brazil, as part of a global agenda for education, coordinated by international organizations. This agenda disseminates a discourse of inclusive education for vulnerable groups, such as the target audience of special education, whose conception of inclusion is restricted to the training of human capital to mitigate inequalities and conflicts arising from the crises and reproduce the process of capital accumulation.