Aparelhos privados de hegemonia e a disputa da educação política: o caso Politize!

Abstract

The central objective of this research is to analyze the hegemonic meanings of political action, citizenship, and citizenship education disseminated in Brazil after the 1990s. We argue that a process of repoliticization of the political sphere has taken place, redefining the meanings and practices within this field. The dissemination of these meanings is treated as an exemplary case of disputes over worldviews, marked by power relations, and advanced by the Private Apparatuses of Hegemony (APH). APHs are understood as key agents in the struggle for hegemony, producing and diffusing worldviews that permeate common sense and guide the behavior of broad sectors of society. Politize! is examined as an APH backed by the business sector, oriented toward the political education of subaltern classes. The organization’s digital educational materials constitute the empirical sources for this analysis, acknowledging the widespread use of digital platforms by educators and learners alike. Our focus falls on the organization’s network connections, particularly the Escola da Cidadania Ativa (“Active Citizenship School”) and its leadership training program.Among the specific objectives are identifying the convergences and divergences between the entity’s conceptions and actions and those shaped by the pedagogy of neoliberal hegemony, as well to understand its relationships with public and private power, situating in within in the context of class-based struggles for hegemony. The analysis reveals a network linking the national and international business actors, private organizations, and public authorities, evidencing a strong ability to build consensus and disseminate its worldview. Private associations increasingly assume responsibilities formely attributed to the public sector, without undergoing democratic electoral scrutiny. In the lexicon disseminated by APHs, citizenship is associated with civil society, portrayed as a realm of goodness, harmony, and efficiency, stripped of the conflicts intrinsic to the political arena. A process of delegitimizing politics occurs, marked by the devaluation of the State’s role and the denial of debates related to the macro-social sphere. This delegitimization is subsequentely followed by a repoliticization. Political action is directed toward individual attitudes based on the logic of entrepreneurship and in cooperation with public and private powers. The result is a depoliticized citizenship, detached from broader, global deliberations. By applying the concept of APH, the research allow us to conclude that the selection of particular meanings is carried out via a pedagogy of hegemony. Worldviews gain strength to the extent that a social group succeeds in promoting them as universal and detached from particular interests. The construction of concepts such as citizenship, political education, and citizenship education is understood in this study as a paradigmatic example of this process