Processes of (in)visibility and the construction of normalities

power relations and the constitution of people with disabilities in mathematics textbooks

Abstract

As described by Michel Foucault, power relations occur economically, seeking the best effect through the least effort, that which encounters the least resistance. This study arises from these concerns, as it analyzes and describes discursive practices that emerge from mathematics textbooks, instituting a specific way of being/conceiving the person with a disability. The theoretical-methodological framework is grounded in the mechanisms of discourse control and in the relationships between knowledge and power, adopting discourse analysis as a tool to interrogate the regimes of truth that sustain the configurations of disability within the educational context. We take as empirical material the collection A Conquista da Matemática, intended for the final years of elementary education. The evidence that emerges from the analyzed corpus reveals a recurring and limited imagetic construction: disability is depicted almost exclusively through wheelchair users and people with visual impairments (blindness or low vision). Other embodiments are silenced. Furthermore, the absence of a meaningful connection between these images and the pedagogical activities suggests an inclusion that never truly materializes, a presence shaped more by the need to fulfill a requirement than by genuine engagement with difference. This evidencing a pseudo-integration of differences into the pedagogical and social context, operating more as a symbolic gesture than as a truly inclusive practice. What is at stake, then, is less about what is shown and more about what is allowed to be seen.