Explorando horizontes educacionais: a potencialidade pedagógica da plataforma Sesc Digital na educação não formal

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the pedagogical potential of the Sesc Digital platform as a space for non-formal education mediated by digital technologies. It starts from the understanding that educational processes in digital environments do not occur in a neutral way but are traversed by historical, social, cultural, and technical contexts that condition the organization of knowledge, the forms of mediation, and the educational proposals provided. The objective of the research is to analyze how Sesc Digital organizes and mediates cultural and technical knowledge in specific courses offered on the platform, observing how these choices produce curricular practices in the context of digital non-formal education. The study dialogues with contributions from critical curriculum theory, especially from authors such as Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, José Gimeno Sacristán, Miguel Arroyo, Moacir Gadotti, and Maria da Glória Gohn, understanding the curriculum as a situated social and cultural practice, built through institutional and technological mediations. A qualitative approach of an interpretive nature is adopted, using the case study as a methodological strategy. The empirical object of the investigation is the Sesc Digital platform, with a focus on the courses “How to Create Podcasts” and “Stage Lighting”. Data production involved documentary analysis, systematic observation of the platform, and field diaries, allowing the monitoring of the curriculum's functioning through the analysis of materials, course structure, and platform organization. Throughout the analysis, the concept of cyberculture, as proposed by Pierre Lévy, is used to understand how aspects specific to digital environments — such as the organization of interfaces, the arrangement of contents, and the forms of technical mediation — manifest in the courses analyzed and in the platform's structure. The results indicate that Sesc Digital is configured as a non-formal education space within cyberculture, in which proposals for access to culture and limits related to technological mediation are articulated. Among these limits, concerns emerge regarding the standardization of educational proposals and ethical issues associated with the use and management of user data. It is concluded that Sesc Digital constitutes a relevant non formal education experience in the Brazilian context, by articulating culture, technology, and training in an accessible and public way, while evidencing tensions typical of contemporary digital education, requiring critical analysis of curriculum, mediation, and the social use of technologies