A proposta de democratização da educação na rede municipal de ensino de Uberlândia-MG (2001-2004) : limites e possibilidades da democracia na escola pública

Abstract

The present study is inserted in the Line of Research of Policies and Education Management and had as its object of investigation the experience of the democratic management implementation process which occurred in the municipal schools of Uberlândia - MG, in the period between 2001 to 2004, via the implementation of the Administrative, Political and Pedagogical Structure Program and of the Escola Cidadã . The general objective of the present study was to reflect on the educational policies implemented which aimed at the consolidation of public education democratic management of and its implications in the process of democratization of the education. To achieve this intent, both bibliographical and documentary research have been used for the purpose of searching in official documents information on the process of implementation of the democratic management in the municipal educational system of Uberlândia, and also field research, accomplished by means of semi-structured interviews applied to a sample of individuals of the municipal educational system of Uberlândia. The study is structured in four chapters. In the first chapter, a bibliographical survey concerning the concept of democracy and its ascension to the condition of main form of political organization in the western world was carried out, evidencing its relationship with the inherent structures of the capitalist society. In the following chapter, an analysis of the conception of present democracy in the recent initiatives of educational policies in Brazil was aimed at, verifying its impacts in the democratization in the education. The third chapter had as a goal the analysis of the democratic management implementation process experienced in the Municipal Education of Uberlândia as well as the educational policies implemented on behalf of the democratic management in the period between 2001 to 2004, considering the macro-context and the particular trajectory of the politics in this city. The fourth chapter, in its turn, had as its purpose to better know the perception of the citizens who had been part of this democratic management implementation process in the municipal educational system of Uberlândia, within the period between 2001 to 2004, verifying how close/distant the implemented process was from this proposal, which was theoretically based on the proposal of the Escola Cidadã , considering the macro-context of the educational policies of the 1990 s, strongly influenced by neo-liberalism the logic of the capitalism.It can be inferred that the program Escola Cidadã , part of the municipal education programme of Uberlândia, was not fully able to accomplish the democratic management in the municipal educational system, once it did not surpass the centralizing structures which are present in all the structure of the school and the municipal educational department, influenced by an authoritarian tradition typical not only of the city, but also of the public system in Brazil, inserted in the context of a materialist society which leads the individuals to eventually take a back seat in making decisions. Thus, the absence of a democratic tradition, associated with the presence of a crystallized authoritarianism makes the implementation of democratic management mechanisms harder to be accomplished.