A construção de um projeto de educação bilíngue para

ABSTRACT
FREITAS, Geise de Moura. The development of a bilingual instruction project for
hearing-impaired students at Colégio de Aplicação do INES in the 1990s: the beginning of
a new history? Dissertation (Masters on Education). Faculdade de Educação, Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2012.
The theme of this paper is comprised by the field of History of Education, more
specifically within the scope of history of educational institutions. Its aim is to investigate
the development of a bilingual instruction project for hearing-impaired students in the
1990s at the Colégio de Aplicação do Instituto Nacional de Educação de Surdos
(CAP/INES – equivalent to „School of Application of the National Institute for Hearing-
Impaired Students‟ Education‟) by exploring the actions taken by school agents that were
guided by a (re)conceptualization of „hearing-impairment‟ and „hearing-impaired students‟
from the perspective of a socio-anthropological model that demanded the development of a
bilingual instructional project within a school context that was heavily affected by the oral
teaching tradition. Therefore, the object of this study was set by the interface between the
historical, social, political and institutional contexts. This study discusses the conflicts and
power relations that shaped the social context in which the competition between the school
agents unfolded. Although each of such agents held a diverse volume of „capital power‟,
they all aimed at implementing an innovative project in the institution. The research also
sought to highlight the various tactful behaviours displayed by each of the referred agents
within their purpose of offsetting the strategies used by institutionalized power. In order to
assess the empirical context of this research, this study lied upon the theoretical concepts
expressed by Pierre Bourdieu (social context, habitus and capital), by Michel De Certeau
(tactics and strategy) and by Carlos Skliar (hearing impairment as a visual experience and
a political difference that results in social subjects that deploy multiple identities and
which, in its turn, results in a hearing-impaired culture. A qualitative research was carried
out and the methods used were bibliographical research of documents (publications by the
INES available in their Permanent Inventory) and semi-structured interviews in the light of
the Oral History methodology – for it is believed that this methodology is able to “provide
qualitative interpretations of historical and social processes” (Lozano, 2006:16). By
analysing the above mentioned sources, it is assumed that a bilingual project of such
nature, still innovative in Brazil, faced opposing resistance from some of the school agents
with CAP/INES, which can lead us to believe in the co-existence of the referred innovative
project alongside the oral instruction tradition within the institution‟s scenario in the 1990s.
Key words: History of Education, history of educational institutions, Instituto Nacional de
Educação de Surdos, bilingual instruction project.