Historically, the education of deaf people has been marked by failures and, recently, inclusive education has been defended as adequate for the insertion of deaf pupils in school. In order to attend to their specific needs, alternatives have been created, such as the presence of sign language and interpreters. This study aims to investigate this context by interviewing two hearing and one deaf student from a fifth grade elementary class in which there was a deaf student and a sign language interpreter. The students reported that the experience was positive; they enjoyed having a different colleague and coming to know sign language. However, the hearing students said that they had introductory levels of understanding of this language, they wished it was easier to learn, and they understood little about deafness. Such facts were not perceived by the deaf student, who felt his relation to his hearing peers to be adequate. There is respect for differences, but the relations are superficial, different from the general experiences of the other students. Understanding how students give meaning to this experience is essential in evaluating the effectiveness of this practice.
deafness; inclusive education; Brazilian sign language; special education