Diseño y validación del perfil profesional de la Educación Especial: desarrollo metodológico

In a constantly changing society, job demands increasingly demand more skills and competencies from professionals graduated from higher education programs. Special Education does not escape this reality, on the contrary, the contributions of Human Rights, Education for All and Inclusive Education force us to rethink the role of these professionals from the very epistemology of the discipline. Thus, the team of researchers from the National Observatory for Inclusive Education of Costa Rica (ONEI) proposed to establish a guiding profile that would serve as a basis for the approach of study plans, job manuals, hiring and evaluation systems, among other possible uses. This process lasted two years, involved the participation of 14 researchers and more than 800 validating and informants throughout the three phases and five stages of work and exchange between qualitative and quantitative methodologies; which allowed the construction, reconstruction and validation of a robust professional profile for Costa Rican Special Education. This article exposes precisely the methodology developed for the profile design and validation process, with the purpose of serving as a model for future replications in other disciplines, which will also favor the continuity of the research in order to validate its content with other populations, such as users of EE services or other related professionals, with whom educational processes are traditionally shared in inclusive settings.