Blindness and science conceptualization

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a research with the objective of understanding how the process of science conceptualizing occurs from the perspective of congenitally blind students and teachers or specialists in visual impairment. It is a qualitative research in which the information was collected in real scenarios to understand the meaning of physical phenomena to the surveyed subjects. The survey was elaborated considering that although concepts and sensitive phenomena are interrelated by their meanings, they are parts of different categories of consciousness. To facilitate the analysis, the answers were grouped into three topics: “congenital blindness and scientific work,” “congenial blindness and the nature of light,” and “congenital blindness, concepts and scientific phenomena.” The results demonstrate that in a world dominated by sight, it’s natural to establish associations of dependence between sight and thinking capacity, knowledge, study and work—in such a way that those who are visually impaired are considered incapable of performing these functions.