Abstract
Background: Education in Brazil can be divided into two target population: Urban, and Rural. The last one has a historical background of peasants being submitted to the Education landlords thought it was suitable.
In the late 1990's groups of organized peasants such as the Landless Workers Movement started what is nowadays called Countryside Education. Differently from Rural Education, the Countryside Education is conceived based on perspectives of political and social change.
Currently, there are forty-four Teacher Education Courses for Countryside Education in Brazil. The students are peasants, quilombolas (descendants of former slaved Africans), riverside population and indigenous people.
Although Inclusive Education is a public policy in Brazil, its discussion in Countryside Education is scarce. Purpose: This intervention research aimed to approach student teachers from a Countryside Teacher Education course in Brazil with Inclusive Education policies and practices, based on the following research question: "How to produce and provide a countryside inclusive education?".
Methodology: Four meetings with the duration of two and a half hours each were held with approximately 40 student teachers at the university during class hours. The meetings were grounded on Paulo Freire's educational philosophy of providing opportunities for students to produce their own knowledge from critical reflection.
Results: At the first contact, the student teachers expressed the discrepancy they saw between Countryside Education and Inclusive Education, not understanding the need to address that issue. This point of view not only changed during and after the intervention research, but also the student teachers expressed that they understood Countryside Education as an inclusive educational practice and that all of them were somehow included by it, since countryside education public is at the margin of the system and often students struggle to learn with conventional methods and curricula.
Conclusion: Countryside Education is an education setting that provides inclusive education, but this issue is not broadly addressed as it should to promote more learning and developing opportunities for its pupils. Countryside Teacher Education courses could benefit from classes that deal with this theme in a critical and practical method.
Recommendations: It is suggested to carry on further studies on this subject in different countries, with student teachers and with teachers who are taking in-service trainings.