Bilingual education policies for deaf students: contributions to academic literacy in higher education

ABSTRACT The systematic enrollment of deaf students in higher education in the last decade demanded important institutional changes regarding the right to a bilingual education, that is, to provide access and production of knowledge in Brazilian sign language and in Portuguese in written form. In this sense, this article aims to discuss the process of bilingual education of deaf students in higher education, presenting actions developed within the Universidade Federal do Paraná (Federal University of Paraná, UFPR), highlighting the contributions brought to the process of bilingual academic literacy in undergraduate and post-graduate programs. We understand that the focus attributed to the figure of the interpreter of Brazilian sign language and the specialized educational service in the national policy of inclusive education does not respond to the needs of adult working deaf students who reach higher education with difficulties in reading and writing Portuguese and little significant experiences in sign language. As a positive result, we point out the contributions to the bilingual academic literacy of deaf students, the development of a specific methodology for the elaboration of bilingual material - in different textual genres - and the amplification of the translator's performance references in the inclusion process. The inclusive process consists in dialogue-based interaction between researchers and specialized professionals, with focus on the protagonism of deaf students, subjects of the educational policy, in the planning of actions and decisions that involve their access and permanence at UFPR.