Sense of inclusion of students with disabilities in higher education: looks from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Abstract This research aims to discuss the process of inclusion of students with disabilities in Brazilian higher education, with a special focus on the senses mobilized by this inclusion in the circulating discourses. With an exploratory-descriptive character, we use the Discourse Analysis from the French perspective to explore the process of meaning production in the official statistics on this inclusion in Brazil and in a federal institution of higher education, also conducting interviews with self-declared students with disabilities and other subjects that with these are related in the daily life of the university. With the analyzes undertaken, we identified flaws in the official data on the presence of students with disabilities in Brazilian higher education, related both to the absence of mechanisms to collect these data in the base institution, and to the non-recognition of the deficiency condition by students that have. Regarding the meanings of their inclusion, this has been evaluated by the subjects of higher education as a presence or as a provision of architectural accessibility, indicating a lack of preparation and lack of knowledge for the provision of conditions of permanence for this student in higher education, perpetuating barriers to their participation on equal terms.