TRAINING PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHERS FOR INCLUSION: REPRESENTATIONS OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

The diversity, complexity and intensity of current social situations demand from the school, and particularly from the teachers, assertive and diversified responses. Nevertheless, there is some scientific unanimity regarding the existence of various constraints, felt and reported by physical education teachers ( PE) regarding their competence to implement inclusive processes in their classes. Given the above, it is increasingly pertinent to revisit the reflection on inclusive PE teacher training, particularly at the level of organization and structuring of curricula, with regard to the development of skills to intervene with students with disabilities in the training of PE teachers. Thus, this investigation aimed to study the representations that are associated with the training of PE teachers for inclusion. Developed under the interpretive paradigm, the study used a semi-structured interview applied to a group of 3 university professors from 4 Portuguese university institutions with PE teacher training as a data collection instrument. This group of professors had an average age of 53 +/- 13.49 years and 20 +/- 19 years of university teaching service. Data was submitted to the content analysis technique (Bardin, 2008). The results identify the need to model the dimensions: i) of initial training, particularly with regard to constraints, strategies for inclusion in PE and training and training approaches; ii) the profile of the Inclusive Physical Education Teacher, emphasizing human and ethical training, motivation, mastery of technical skills, specific knowledge of disability, multidisciplinary scientific knowledge, adaptability and being a promoter/facilitator of inclusion; iii) continuous training, where the reasons for participation and non-participation are highlighted; iv) the aspirations for initial training, recognizing the need to develop practical training in a real context, the existence of long-term curricular units and the need for guided pedagogical practice in a real context.