ORIGINAL ARTICLE
BORBA, Jocélia Emília [1], MELO, Josefa Gomes dos Santos [2], VIEIRA, Maria Merceis da Silva [3]
BORBA, Jocélia Emília. MELO, Josefa Gomes dos Santos. VIEIRA, Maria Merceis da Silva. The Brazilian Sign Language – Libras as a Determinant Factor for Deaf Students’ Access to the Job Market. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento. Year 06, Ed. 06, Vol. 06, pp. 117-128. June 2021. ISSN: 2448-0959, Access link: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/education/deaf-on-the-market
SUMMARY
The insertion of the deaf in the labor market is a theme discussed at the national level, therefore, this article aims to analyze how the (LIBRAS), Brazilian Sign Language is determinant for its access in the labor market. Through this research, we seek to verify how the professional training of the deaf subject will provide him with entry into the world of work, enabling them to assume comprehensive dimensions, and to recognize himself as a useful subject to a democratic society without discrimination and prejudice, committed to citizen education and social transformation. This transformation begins when the school is committed to the education and preparation of the subject for the globalized world. As a result, one wonders why the number of deaf people inserted in the labor market is so small? It is necessary to create study groups with educators to discuss educational training programs that guarantee the deaf to stay in the labor market. This bibliographic article with theoretical basis in Bakhtin (2006); Botelho (2002); Brasil (1999); Skliar (1997), among others, enables education specialists new ways to intervene in schools without stigmatizing or labeling the student. Therefore, it is concluded that the best way to help the student is to show that they are able to overcome this disability and progress personally and professionally. The mobilizing resource is emphasized, the union of forces between the family and the school, affection and reflection to favor the development of self-esteem and responsibility for others and the environment, fundamental goals of education in a school committed to the formation of deaf identity. Because it is a current and relevant theme, new studies and research is important, because it is not exhausted here.
Keywords: Deafness, Training, Opportunity, Job market.
1. INTRODUCTION
This article aims to analyze how the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) is determinant for the access of the deaf to the labor market.
The inclusion of the deaf in the labor market is today a widely discussed topic, shows that the population feels the need to include these individuals in society and consequently to the world of work.
The limitation of the deaf does not prevent him from exercising a profession, because they have the other senses that will make them supply the need for the non-existent.
However, inclusion should happen in various social sectors and not just in the classroom. Undoubtedly, the school is a determining factor in the life of this young person, because through the attitudes of the teacher the same successfully builds his educational and professional trajectory.
It is noted that the deaf for not mastering the spoken language is subjected to social exclusion, that is, if he does not master the verbal language that is the priority in the communication of the hearing subject, in this environment the deaf will be excluded, because there will be no dialogue/communication.
From this angle, it is perceived that listeners and deaf people have the same possibilities to develop well, both the cognitive and linguistic aspects, making it clear that both are able to conquer a space in the world of work.
Human beings need to work to meet their basic needs, such as food, clothing, leisure, among others. It is through the fruit harvested by the sweat of an exhausting day of work that man feels productive, being able to collaborate with the growth of the country.
It is known that the deaf person being part of a linguistic minority faces a great challenge when looking for work, so there is a greater difficulty in being admitted and continue for a long period of time employed.
Despite Laws 8,122/90 and 8. 213/91, which provide for quotas to be filled by hearing impaired in the public and or private sectors, it is perceived that the number of deaf people inserted in the formal or informal labor market is still low.
It is considered, a minimum number of insertion of deaf workers in the labor market, even those who have completed their studies, master the Sign Language, have a good professional qualification can not fix themselves, because it is judged as deficient or incapable. These are some of the obstacles encountered by the deaf at the time of admission. The employer does not receive this worker, does not offer him an opportunity to analyze his work and check whether or not he can continue in your company, simply says at first that he does not fit the profile of the company, and that it is not prepared to deal with his disability, dissetting the candidate , without him being able to show his skills.
The interest in the theme is justified by the lack of opportunity that the deaf community finds in the 21st century to be inserted in the labor market, and to perform its tasks with dignity, showing its physical, mental and intellectual capacity before a listening society.
2. HISTORY OF DEAF EDUCATION IN BRAZIL
Until the 15th century, the deaf were considered primitive, had no rights and lived segregated. In Brazil, the service to people with special needs began in the Empire with the creation of the National Institute of Deaf Education – INES.
In the eighteenth century, the education of the deaf shows great advances, with the foundation of several schools. In addition, qualitatively, education for them evolves, with the Brazilian Sign Language, they learn and master various subjects, in addition to exercising different professions. The 1988 Constitution defines in article 205 that:
Education, the right of all and the duty of the state and the family, will be promoted and encouraged with the collaboration of society, aiming at the full development of the person, his preparation for the exercise of citizenship and his qualification for work (BRASIL, 1988).
In this sense, it is up to the school to restructure itself in a way that meets the diversity of students, perceiving each one in its individuality, so that growth, personal self-esteem and later its projection in the labor market happen.
The Guatemala Convention, held in 1999, promulgated in Brazil through Decree No. 3,956/2001, presents the premise that people are disabled or do not have the same rights and defines discrimination as:
(…) Any differentiation, exclusion or restriction based on disability, history of disability, consequence of previous disability or perception of present or past disability, which has the effect or purpose of preventing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by persons with disabilities of their human rights and their fundamental freedoms (BRASIL, 1999).
The decree makes it clear that a reinterpretation of inclusive education must be made in order to eliminate the barriers that prevent deaf access to school, because it is in the school life that the subject will acquire the appropriate training so that at the end of his studies he can be recognized as having skills and competencies for work. Therefore, people with disabilities should not be prevented from studying or participating in all the events of the community where they live, even because preventing a person from actively participating in society is a crime, because each subject is born free to come and go.
3. THE DEAF AND TRAINING
Since the 1990s, the educational policy to include subjects with disabilities has been spreading around the world. This policy also contemplates the deaf community.
The deaf must acquire their training in regular schools of listeners, so that living with teachers and other members who are part of the school community favors their personal and professional growth so that by the time this young person leaves school is able to take responsibility for a worthy profession.
It is through linguistic knowledge that the human being structures the activities of daily life through the cognitive connections made in the brain. That is, language allows the subject to interact to build new knowledge.
Language is acquired with social interaction, but it does not mean that the deaf because they do not have the spoken language, are excluded from society or from the world of work. The deaf have a primary right to attend a school. It is up to it, to adapt to the needs of the different students who attend it. It is important that the faculty is qualified so that learning happens in a meaningful way.
The Salamanca Declaration (1994) states that:
The commitment that the school must assume to educate each student, contemplating the pedagogy of diversity, because all students must be inside the regular room, regardless of their social origin, ethnicity or linguistics (BRASIL, 1994).
The inclusion of the deaf should be seen as a dynamic process, where everyone wins when the group is completed.
About this context Skliar says:
Sign language is the identification element of the deaf, and the fact of being a community means that they share and know the uses and norms of use of the same language, since they interact daily in an effective and efficient communicative process. That is, they developed linguistic and communicative and cognitive skills through the use of sign language proper to each deaf community (SKLIAR, 1997, p. 141).
Parents, when enrolling deaf children in schools for listeners, are afraid and afraid of them not adapting or suffering discrimination from their peers. Another concern is the lack of qualification of teachers at the time of communication.
The deaf need a democratic school, which meets the specificities of each individual, that is able to insert the Sign Language for the whole class, so that the deaf subject develops both the cognitive and linguistic aspects.
It is necessary that the school work with the subject, whether deaf or hearing, the social, cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic aspects, etc., because it will certainly form this young person for the world, that is, the same will be able to build their own paths. In addition to providing students with knowledge of both languages, Portuguese and LIBRAS.
4. DEAF VS LABOR MARKET
The first impediment that the deaf individual faces to enter the market is not to have the spoken language, to communicate with listeners who are unaware of the Sign Language, which will hinder communication between them.
Individuals do not receive the language ready to be used; they penetrate into the current of verbal communication, or rather, only when they plunge into this current does their consciousness awaken and begin to operate. It is only in the process of acquiring a foreign language that the consciousness already constituted – thanks to the mother tongue – is confronted with a whole language ready, which only has to assimilate it. Subjects do not “acquire” their mother tongue; it is in her and through her that the first awakening of consciousness occurs. (BAKHTIN, 2006 p. 111).
Language is constituted through interaction with the other, this interaction causes the subject to increase his vocabulary. Hence the need for dialogue between deaf and deaf and hearing, because when there is the sharing of ideas opens a range to know and learn the culture of the other, and the construction of knowledge happens. Likewise, in work the individual is deaf or does not have to communicate and even one not having mastery of the other’s language coexistence will help them strengthen a bond and in the end both will be contemplated, because the need for communication will cause one to learn the language of the other.
“(…) sociocultural identification and in which the pedagogical model is not an obsession to correct the deficit, but the continuation of a compensation mechanism that the deaf themselves have historically demonstrated to use” (SKLIAR, 1997, p. 140).
The approach of the deaf to groups of deaf and oralized people will help him to build his identity, because communication is fundamental for the expansion of human knowledge.
The linguistic difference does not make the deaf less capable than the listener, on the contrary, it is in the conviviality with the differences that we perceive what each being is able to do.
The Brazilian Sign Language is the mother tongue of the deaf, and through it the individual will be able to learn to communicate, which will facilitate their entry into the labor market.
Professional training is essential, especially when talking about people with limitations. It means, however, that the individual must have adequate training and qualification to masterfully perform his/her function.
The school says it prepares young people for the job market, but when it sees the number of unemployed people living in the poverty line presented in the media such as radio and television, the size of the inequality that exists in the country. Hence the challenge for society that lives in a reality of social exclusion, where not only the deaf are excluded, enter this group: the poor, black, illiterate, etc.
Stigma and prejudice are part of our mental and atheusinal world, considering that we belong to categories – women, blacks, illiterate, teachers, Jews, old, repeaters at school, post-graduates, foreigners – which are received with little or much reservation by a determined group (BOTELHO, 2002, p. 26).
As long as society looks at people with prejudice because they belong to a minority class, segregation and exclusion will continue to exist. The individual should be free to choose which profession to follow and which one adapts best, regardless of color, race, gender, ethnicity, linguistic classification or social class.
“Learning to speak is learning to structure utterances, and the utterances produced are always full of echoes and memories resulting from other utterances already said, linked to the sphere of verbal communication” (BAKHTIN, 1997, p. 302).
In this context, the deaf person does not need to appropriate the speech to communicate, much less verbal communication, because the Sign Language is enough for socialization and communication between peers.
The deaf are independent, do not need another person to learn to communicate, even being a minority, he knows the rights he has and is in search of better living conditions, I am seeking his space in the job market. People are free to grow and develop, therefore, aiming at this growth the deaf built their Sign Language.
Studies indicate that the deaf person learns and develops better when he makes use of the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) as his first language.
“(…) a human being is not devoid of mind or mentally handicapped without a tongue, but is severely restricted in the reach of his thoughts, confined, in fact, to an immediate, small world” (SACKS, 1998, p. 52).
The role of the educator will not be precisely to teach to read, but to create conditions for the student, deaf or not, to achieve his own learning. That is, sign language is determinant so that the deaf can be sent to the job market, because for this class it is their first language and the Portuguese its second language, which makes it clear that it dominates its mother tongue is able for its placement in the labor market.
5. ACCESSIBILITY IN THE LABOUR MARKET
Before accessing the first job, the subject is subjected to an interview, which will determine whether or not he is able to occupy a vacancy in the labor market. The deaf face in this first contact a difficulty, which is not to possess the spoken language, but he can present himself with an interpreter so that he translates the sign language into the oral language. Fulfilling these legal requirements, it will prevent this young person from entering the labor market, enabling him to fully exercise his citizenship, making himself useful to the society of which he is a part. But there is a prejudice rooted in society, which decreases the chances of a disabled person entering the labor market.
One of the problems is the resistance of employers to hire deaf people. They suffer prejudice and often find denied opportunities to show their abilities and talents. When they get a job, they find it difficult to build interpersonal relationships and understand the dynamics of the work space itself (MARIN; GOÉS, 2006 p. 236).
Therefore, it is necessary that the law of quotas be complied with in practice. And given the context, the company hires the interpreter who is the professional knowledgeable of the Sign Language, so that deaf young people can understand what is being addressed and intervene in the dialogue if it deems it appropriate; thus the interpretation occurs with the presence of this professional who clearly and accurately passes all the content through signs and the deaf will actively participate in the conversation.
Law 9394/96 makes it clear in its articles 39 and 59, items I and IV, that:
Art. 39 – Professional education integrated with different forms of education, work, science and technology, leads to the permanent development of skills for productive life Art. 59 – Education systems will ensure that students with special needs are. I – Specific curricula, methods, techniques, educational resources and organization to meet your needs; IV – special education for work, aiming at its effective integration into life in society, including adequate conditions for those who do not reveal the ability to enter competitive work, through articulation with related official bodies, as well as for those who have a superior skill in the artistic, intellectual or psychomotor areas (BRASIL, 1996).
Society must offer conditions for the deaf to compete equally with other workers, so that this happens it is necessary that professional training programs be prepared in a way that meets the specificities of all, so that there is no discrimination before a category. From these programs it will be clear where each individual has the most ability to produce, making it come to the conclusion of which profession he will practice more safely.
It is known that the deaf person for having the limitation of not listening cannot assume positions that depend exclusively on hearing as a receptionist, operator, etc., but will undoubtedly occupy with brilliance services in the artistic, intellectual, technological and psychomotor areas.
No more segregation, wanting to belittle a person without knowing what society can offer by simply possessing a specificity that is inherent to all human beings, regardless of whether they have a disability or not.
6. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The importance of school is understood as a space of action and forces that contributes to the fight against social, racial and linguistic discrimination. A school committed to combating inequalities can direct awareness work, where everyone in their differences participates in the transformation process. Such a school, committed to the future of its young people will have a facilitating function, so that they can conquer the broadest conditions of actively contributing to the labor market.
It is revealed that to train autonomous, creative and critical individuals requires the development of actions articulated by schools throughout their pedagogical process, in the elaboration of flexible planning, which meets each one respecting their limitations and specificities, ensuring them autonomy in doing so. For this, a relationship of complicity between teacher-student is fundamental, so that he feels prepared to act in society and in the labor market.
It is perceived that every day the Brazilian education model seeks to insert its students into an egalitarian society. For this to occur, it is necessary that deaf people and listeners occupy the same space in the school context, making everyone actively participate, for the building of a fair education and social equity.
Finally, it was observed that to improve the access of the deaf to the labor market it is necessary to join forces of all who are part of the teaching and learning process; beyond the family, and of course the institutions involved with public policies, so that the deaf have more job opportunities, thus promoting a fairer society, where a disability is only a physical condition and not a divider to determine who is capable or not to contribute to the growth of the country.
It was found that the access of the deaf to the labor market is a subject of great relevance and stimulating, therefore, deserves to be the target of new scientific investigations in the academic field, both by students and other professionals who have an interest in the subject, because it is inexhaustible.
REFERENCES
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BRASIL. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação nacional. Lei nº 9394/96. Brasília DF.1996.
BRASIL. Assembleia Nacional Constituinte. Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil. Brasília, DF: Senado Federal, 1988.
DECLARAÇÃO da Guatemala. Convenção Internacional para a eliminação de todas as formas de discriminação contra as pessoas portadoras de deficiência. Guatemala, 1999.
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DIZEU, Liliane Correia Toscano de Brito; COPARALI, Sueli Aparecida. A língua de sinais constituindo o surdo como sujeito. Educação e Sociedade. Vol. 26; 2006.
MARIN, C. R. GOES C. R. A experiência de pessoas surdas em esferas de atividade do cotidiano. Vol 26. Campinas-SP: Cad. Cedes, 2006.
SACKS, O. Vendo vozes: uma viagem ao mundo dos surdos. São Paulo: Cia das Letras, 1998.
SKLIAR, Carlos (org.). Educação & Exclusão: abordagens socioantropológicas em educação especial. Porto Alegre: Mediação 1997.
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[1] PhD in Education; Master’s degree in Education; Postgraduate in Psychopedagogy, Graduation in Pedagogy.
[2] PhD in Education; Master’s degree in Education; Specialist in History Teaching. Specialist in Psychopedagogy. Graduation in Social Sciences.
[3] Master’s degree in Education; Postgraduate in School Management and Pedagogical Coordination; Post Graduated in Higher Education Methodology; Post graduated in Mathematics and Graduation in Mathematics.
Submitted: March, 2021.
Approved: June, 2021.
