Luís Armando Gandin

Challenging neo-liberalism, building democracy: creating the Citizen School in Porto Alegre, Brazil

In this article, we situate the processes of educational policy and reform into their larger socio-political context. We describe the ways in which a set of policies has had what seem to be extensive and long lasting effects because the policies are coherently linked to larger dynamics of social transformation and to a coherent strategy that aims to change the mechanisms of the state and the rules of participation in the formation of state policies. We describe and analyse the policies of the ‘Popular Administration’ in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We specifically focus on the ‘Citizen School’ and on proposals that are explicitly designed to radically change both the municipal schools and the relationship between communities, the state and education. This set of policies and the accompanying processes of implementation are constitutive parts of a clear and explicit project aimed at constructing not only a better school for the excluded, but also a larger project of radical democracy. The reforms being built in Porto Alegre are still in formation, but we argue that they have crucial implications for how we might think about the politics of education policy and its dialectical role in social transformation.

Can critical democracy last? Porto Alegre and the struggle over ‘thick’ democracy in education

A fundamental question lies at the heart of the issues surrounding the connections between educational projects and larger socially critical movements and projects. What would a socially just education system look like? In answering this, one place immediately comes to mind, a locale where this question was answered through real transformations: the municipal educational system of Porto Alegre, Brazil. This article examines the structural changes that were put in place in Porto Alegre’s municipal system during the 16-year tenure of the Popular Administration (a coalition of left-wing parties, led by the Workers Party that governed the city from 1989 to 2004) and offers a preliminary evaluation of the current state of the schools in Porto Alegre. Among the questions we address are: How did these changes come about? What were the components of the Porto Alegre experience? What did it achieve? What is its legacy? What has lasted? What does this tell us about the prospects for socially committed critical reforms? To answer these questions, we first situate Porto Alegre in its context. We then examine why Porto Alegre’s educational system deserves to be studied and what it achieved. We also present some challenges that the experience is currently facing and finally we revisit the Porto Alegre school system six years after the Workers Party left office and address both some of what has lasted and what has changed.

The Construction of the Citizen School Project as an Alternative to Neoliberal Educational Policies

This article examines the ‘Citizen School’ project implemented in Porto Alegre, Brazil as an example of how to fight against neoliberal projects. It begins by describing the broader context in which the Citizen School project was born, including the hegemonic agenda for education, first in its global aspects and then in specific instances in Brazil. The Brazilian case is understood not as a simple reproduction of a global trend in education, but as a hybrid process, with local characteristics and peculiarities. Therefore, this article examines the ways in which the global process of neoliberalism and marketization heavily influences the Brazilian educational scenario but, at the same time, it also studies the results of the encounter of this global process with the local dominant alliances and struggles for transformation. Second, it situates the Citizen School project in the context of the counter-hegemonic educational struggles in Brazil. Finally, the article also addresses how the leaders of the project were able to disarticulate some of the decentralization and autonomy proposals from its neoliberal agenda and rearticulate them in an alternative project, the Citizen School project.

Porto Alegre as a Counter-Hegemonic "Global City": Building Globalization from below in Governance and Education.

This paper analyzes the case of Porto Alegre, Brazil as a counter-hegemonic global city. Porto Alegre is a city with no particular relevance to neoliberal globalization that, nevertheless, was launched to a global scale by transformations in local governance. New mechanisms of deliberative democracy captured the attention of social actors constructing a movement of globalization from below, making Porto Alegre the de facto capital of the World Social Forum. In this paper I focus on the educational policies created in the city, which expanded the social imaginary in education and are a key component of Porto Alegres ‘globalization’.

Pedagogies of Inclusion: Lessons from Escola Cidadã

Located in the south of Brazil, Porto Alegre is the largest urban district and the capital of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The city has a population of 1,400,000 and from 1989 to 2005 it implemented the Escola Cidada (Citizen School Project), an educational reform project.1 Escola Cidada stands out as one of the most innovative urban educational reform projects implemented worldwide (UN, 1996; World Bank, 2000) because it has been successfully educating children and the citizenry of Porto Alegre, and doing so under severe economic constraints and against the rationale of the dominant models of educational reform (Fischman, Ball, and Gvirtz, 2003). In this chapter we will argue that Escola Cidada has not only improved the quality of education in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, but it has also the potential for becoming a worldwide reference for how we could think about the politics of educational policy and social exclusion.

A perspectiva de Michael Apple para os estudos das políticas educacionais

This paper aims at analyzing Michael Apple’s contributions to research on educational policy. Among the vast work of Apple, we point to six elements that can help those interested in the field of educational policy: the epistemological principle of relational analysis; examining the State as a relation; the legacy of Antonio Gramsci and Raymond Williams that Michael Apple incorporates into the use of concepts such as hegemony and common sense; Apple’s analysis of educational policy as cultural policy, as disputes over worldview, as a struggle for the consolidation of hegemony that goes beyond economy; his attitude as a researcher; and his ability of going beyond the logics of reproduction and determination to emphasize the role of agency and counter-hegemony. Through concrete examples of Apple’s own work and of other empirical research, we present the implications of each of the six elements aforementioned to the scholars interested in educational policy. We conclude by showing that many of Apple’s contributions can indeed improve on current research in the area, particularly taking into consideration his critique of economic determinism in educational analysis, pointing out to the crucial role of culture in research.

RECONFIGURACIÓN DEL TRABAJO DOCENTE: UNA INVESTIGACIÓN DE LA INTRODUCCIÓN DE PROGRAMAS DE INTERVENCIÓN PEDAGÓGICA

This paper analyzes the changes in the work of elementary school teachers in public schools of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, after the introduction of a pedagogical intervention program developed from 2007 to 2010. The concepts of disqualification, requalification, intensification, and performativity, based on the work of Michael Apple and Stephen Ball are mobilized in the research. The interviews with teachers, the observations, and the materials from the Alfa and Beto Institute – the program which was implemented – were analyzed through the theoretical focus of these concepts. The text characterizes the transformations that educational policies, based on managerialist configurations of the state – embodied in this program – generate in teachers’ work. In the field that was studied, teachers are transformed into executors of a preconceived program and lose their autonomy at the same time that new tasks, dealing with the control of the contents and rhythms, have to be learned. In this transformed work, the choreographed measurement of teachers’ actions becomes more important than the content of this action.

Reconfiguration of teacher’s work: an examination of the introduction of pedagogical intervention programs

This paper analyzes the changes in the work of elementary school teachers in public schools of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, after the introduction of a pedagogical intervention program developed from 2007 to 2010. The concepts of disqualification, requalification, intensification, and performativity, based on the work of Michael Apple and Stephen Ball are mobilized in the research. The interviews with teachers, the observations, and the materials from the Alfa and Beto Institute – the program which was implemented – were analyzed through the theoretical focus of these concepts. The text characterizes the transformations that educational policies, based on managerialist configurations of the state – embodied in this program – generate in teachers’ work. In the field that was studied, teachers are transformed into executors of a preconceived program and lose their autonomy at the same time that new tasks, dealing with the control of the contents and rhythms, have to be learned. In this transformed work, the choreographed measurement of teachers’ actions becomes more important than the content of this action.

Reconfiguração do trabalho docente: um exame a partir da introdução de programas de intervenção pedagógica

This paper analyzes the changes in the work of elementary school teachers in public schools of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, after the introduction of a pedagogical intervention program developed from 2007 to 2010. The concepts of disqualification, requalification, intensification, and performativity, based on the work of Michael Apple and Stephen Ball are mobilized in the research. The interviews with teachers, the observations, and the materials from the Alfa and Beto Institute – the program which was implemented – were analyzed through the theoretical focus of these concepts. The text characterizes the transformations that educational policies, based on managerialist configurations of the state – embodied in this program – generate in teachers’ work. In the field that was studied, teachers are transformed into executors of a preconceived program and lose their autonomy at the same time that new tasks, dealing with the control of the contents and rhythms, have to be learned. In this transformed work, the choreographed measurement of teachers’ actions becomes more important than the content of this action.

Entendendo o estado gerencial e sua relação com a educação: algumas ferramentas de análise. Doi:10.5212/PraxEduc.v.7i1.0004

Que historia, para qual cidadania? O ensino de historia na educacao basica no Mexico No Mexico a reflexao acerca dos vinculos entre a historia como disciplina escolar e os processos sociais de construcao de cidadania, requer conceber este objeto de estudo como apenas uma parte de um processo muito mais complexo que o vincula tanto a educacao civica e etica, como as praticas cotidianas conformadoras de uma certa cultura escolar. E necessario situar historicamente as origens e formas de funcionamento de cada uma dessas facetas, assim como a maneira em que entre elas se reforcam em suas pretensoes formativas. Somente desse modo e possivel reconhecer os fins, utilidades e limites do ensino de historia tal qual e concebido hoje em dia, assim como sua impossibilidade de assumir como objetivos educativos a construcao de nocoes democraticas referidas a uma concepcao moderna de cidadania. Palavras-chave: Cidadania. Historia e seu ensino. Formacao para a democracia. Resumen En Mexico la reflexion acerca de los vinculos entre la historia como disciplina escolar y los procesos sociales de construccion de ciudadania, requiere concebir este objeto de estudio como solo una parte de un proceso mucho mas complejo que lo vincula tanto a la educacion civica y etica, como a las practicas cotidianas conformadoras de una cierta cultura escolar. Es necesario ubicar historicamente los origenes y formas de funcionamiento de cada una de esas facetas, asi como la manera en que entre ellas se refuerzan en sus afanes formativos. Solo de esa forma es posible reconocer los fines, utilidades y limites de la ensenanza de la historia tal cual es concebida hoy en dia, asi como su imposibilidad de asumir como objetivos educativos la construccion de nociones democraticas referidas a una concepcion moderna de ciudadania. Palabras claves: Ciudadania. Historia y su ensenanza. Formacion para la democracia. Abstract Which history, to which citizens? History teaching in basic education in Mexico In Mexico, a reflection on the links between History as a school subject and the processes of social construction of citizenship requires conceiving the object of study as only part of a much more complex process that binds it both to civic education and ethics, and to everyday forming practices of a certain school culture. It is necessary to historically locate the sources and forms of operation of each of these facets as well as the way they reinforce their training claims.Only in this way it is possible to recognize purposes, uses and limits of teaching History as it is conceived today, as well as its inability to take as an educational goalthe building of democratic notions related to a modern conception of citizenship. Keywords: Citizenship. History and its teaching. Training for democracy.Resumen En este trabajo se evaluan algunos elementos del conocimiento matematico comun y especializado del contenido y del conocimiento del contenido y los estudiantes en relacion con la probabilidad elemental en una muestra de profesores en formacion. El conocimiento comun del contenido se evalua a partir de las soluciones de 157 profesores en formacion a tres problemas. Una vez discutidas con los participantes estas soluciones, se analizan dos componentes del conocimiento de 81 de ellos, trabajando en pequenos grupos: (a) El conocimiento especializado del contenido se evalua a partir de los contenidos matematicos identificados en los problemas; (b) el conocimiento del contenido y los estudiantes a partir de la identificacion y justificacion de respuestas de alumnos de educacion primaria. Aunque en la evaluacion inicial se observo un bajo razonamiento probabilistico, en la segunda los participantes son capaces de identificar y explicar las respuestas incorrectas de los alumnos. Palabras clave: Conocimiento Matematico para la Ensenanza. Probabilidad. Educacion Primaria. Abstract Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Prospective primary school teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching probability: an exploratory study This study assesses some elements of common and specialized mathematical knowledge and of knowledge of content and students in relation to elementary probability from a sample of prospective primary school teachers. Common knowledge of content is assessed from the individual solution of 157 prospective teachers to three problems. Once the solution to these problems was discussed with the participants, two additional components of these teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching were analyzed based on small group work developed by 81 participants: (1) To assess specialized knowledge of content we asked participants to identify the tasks mathematical content; (b) to assess their knowledge of content and students we asked them to identify and justify correct and incorrect answers to the problems given by primary school children. While in the initial assessment we observed a poor probabilistic reasoning, in the second part they were able to identify and explain incorrect answers given by students. Keywords: Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching. Probability. Primary School. Resumo Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Conhecimento m atematico de p rofessores dos anos iniciais do Ensino Fundamental em formacao para o ensino de probabilidade : u m estudo exploratorio Neste trabalho foi realizada uma avaliacao de alguns elementos do conhecimento matematico comum e especializado e do conhecimento do conteudo e os alunos sobre a probabilidade elementar de professores do ensino primario em formacao. O conhecimento comum do conteudo e avaliado a partir das solucoes de 157 professores em formacao a tres problemas. Uma vez que os participantes discutiram com estas solucoes , analisamos dois componentes do conhecimento matematico para o ensino de 81 desses alunos , trabalhando em pequenos grupos: a) O conhecimento especializado do conteudo e avaliado com base no conteudo matematico dos problemas identificados , ( b) o conhecimento do conteudo e os alunos sao avaliados com base na identificacao e justificacao das respostas de alunos do ensino fundamental . Enquanto na avaliacao inicial mostrou um raciocinio probabilistico pobre, na segunda, os participantes sao capazes de identificar e explicar as respostas incorretas dos alunos. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento matematico para o ensino. Probabilidade. Ensino Fundamental.1024x768 Este artigo visa enfatizar a necessidade, que um Programa de Pos-Graduacao em Educacao pode ter, de produzir conhecimentos, a partir de um esforco continuado de abertura a totalidade da experiencia humana, nao se fechando em posicoes epistemologicas reducionistas dessa experiencia. O artigo pontua, tambem, que a formacao de estudiosos e de profissionais da educacao tem, como tarefa principal, a consolidacao do habito intelectual de sensibilidade e de criatividade diante de qualquer manifestacao da vida humana, tal como aflora nos varios processos culturais, na diversidade e na complexidade de cada um deles, na concreticidade das praticas sociais que os engendram. Palavras-chave: Educacao. Experiencia. Significado. Abstract Meaning of knowledge production in Postgraduate studies and its communication with social practices This paper highlights the need, which a Postgraduate Programme in Education may have, of producing knowledge from a continuous effort of integral human experience openness, not closing itself to narrow epistemological positions of that experience. This paper also enphasizes that the education of scholars and education professionals has as main task the consolidation of the intellectual habit of being creative and sensitive towards any manifestation of human life, just as it emerges in various cultural processes, in the diversity and complexity of each one of them and in the reality of social practices that give birth to them. Keywords: Education. Experience. Meaning. Resumen Significados de la produccion del conocimiento en el Posgrado y en sus interlocuciones con la practica social El articulo tiene como objetivo enfatizar la necesidad, que un Programa de Posgrado en Educacion puede tener, de producir conocimientos, empezando por um esfuerzo continuado de apertura a la totalidad de la experiencia humana, sin cerrarse en posiciones epistemologicas reduccionistas acerca de esa experiencia. Enfatizar tambien que la formacion de estudiosos y profesionales de la educacion tiene, como tarea principal, la consolidacion del habito intelectual de la sensibilidad y de la creatividad, delante de cualquier manifestacion de vida humana, tal como emerge en sus varios procesos culturales; en la diversidad y complejidad de cada uno de ellos; em la concrecion de las practicas sociales que los engendran. Palabras clave: Educacion. Experiencia. Significado.