WHAT DO BRAZILIAN MUNICIPAL HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS DECLARE ABOUT THEIR ACCESSIBILITY CENTERS? A CENSUS PORTRAIT THROUGH THE LENS OF IN/EXCLUSION

Abstract

Federal policy fostering accessibility centers in Brazilian higher education, from the Incluir Program to Decree No. 12,686/2025, has targeted federal institutions, leaving municipal ones to decide through their own administration. This study analyzes how Brazilian municipal universities and university centers declare, in their public documentary sources, the existence and configuration of accessibility centers for the target population of special education. It is a qualitative, documentary, census-based study of the twelve institutions in this segment, using documentary analysis guided by Foucauldian tools and a descriptive count of absolute frequencies, treating non-located information as a finding. Eight institutions declare a dedicated structure, one declares partial actions, and three make no public information available that would characterize their policy. Nomenclatures concentrate on the accessibility and inclusion pair; autism spectrum disorder is named by only three institutions, and only one explicitly lists the three segments of the target population; five declare actions directed at teaching staff. Read through the notion of in/exclusion, the results describe gradients of declaration rather than a binary division between including and excluding. Naming the target population and making the structure visible are conditions for addressing declared inclusion.