Possibilidades democráticas em educação: a experiência de gestão educacional em Várzea Paulista - SP (2005-2012)

Abstract

Democratization of access and permanence, social quality of education and democratic management were principles for the formulation and execution of education public policies during the 2005-2012 administration in the city of Várzea Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil. From this context, this research was developed, which aimed to give credibility to an experience of educational administration that took place in this municipality. An analysis was made of the Continuing Education Program “Construir o Aprender” (Build Learning), of the collective construction of the Curriculum Guidelines and the Municipal Education Plan, which were education policies that were the basis for the action and conception of education constituted during the analyzed administration. For credibility, supported by Santos (2007, 2011, 2018b), we sought to make present social experiences made absent and, thus, expand the field of credible experiences capable of assisting in the dispute of political power with hegemonic social practices. The hypothesis of this work is that that experience of educational administration came close to a conception of high-intensity democracy, as proposed by Santos (2002, 2016) and established a close dialogue with curricular justice, according to Ponce (2016, 2018). The methodological option of the study had a qualitative character and was based on Santos’ epistemological stance (2007, 2011, 2018b), called Sociology of absences and Sociology of emergencies, in addition to the work of translation. Interviews were conducted with the administration managers and with education professionals who participated in the process of building education policies in the municipality. Among the procedures for collecting information, there are also the analysis of documents issued by the Department of Education and the legislation established at the time. To describe the data obtained, the content analysis methodology proposed by Bardin (2016) was used. The analysis of the material was anchored in the reflections on democracy, proposed by Santos (2002, 2011, 2016), and in the three dimensions of the concept of curricular justice (knowledge, care and coexistence), proposed by Ponce (2016, 2018) and Ponce and Araújo (2019). The path taken to give credibility to the experience of educational administration pointed to a rupture with the patrimonialism and clientelism present in the municipality, while professional training proposals were established that democratized and constituted intelligibility among the various types of knowledge, strengthening the relations between the Department of Education and educators. These aspects strengthened the participatory project for the construction of education policies adopted by the administration. To meet participatory democracy, the administration raised its inclusive and distributive aspirations, in addition to using elements of representative democracy in the construction of the Curriculum Guidelines and the Municipal Education Plan, creating a democratic experimentalism not yet experienced by the research participants. In this way, it was considered that some knowledge, demands and perhaps silences were not provoked, without forgetting that the education administration analyzed radicalized the democratic possibilities of the moment, putting into action another perspective of democracy. A perspective that dared to democratize knowledge, transform relationships and spaces of power into relationships of shared authority, boost the participation of those involved and constitute the experience of democracy in question as an immaterial legacy that forged nonconformist and competent rebellions, so necessary and urgent in the current society