Contributos para o estudo da história da educação de surdos no distrito de Setúbal

The reconstruction of the history of Deaf education in Portugal has been a complex task for researchers due to the scarcity of resources, but mainly because of its scatter among various institutions, archives, private collections and second-handbook stores. Researchers have been able to reconstruct this history, essentially focusing on the two largest cities in the country, Lisbon and Porto, where the first deaf institutes appeared in the course of the 19th century, which supposedly responded to the whole country. However, we know that many deaf children and young people dispersed in different districts, counties and parishes did not have access to the education offered by these institutes either because their caregivers were never aware of the existence of these institutes, or due to the lack of financial resources to send them to be educated. That was the reason that led us to undertake the present investigation to try to understand how deaf children who lived outside the districts of Lisbon and Porto had access to education, or not, how they integrated into the society, and how educational institutions dealt with this population. In order to suggest answers to these questions, this paper offers a case study on the education of the deaf in the district of Setúbal with a chronological cut from 1822 to the present.