Eleição nas escolas: uma análise do impacto do diretor eleito sobre o desempenho educacional no Estado da Bahia

In Brazil, the selection of school principals is set in a decentralized manner by each state and city, such that processes may vary with time for a specific locality. In the state of Bahia, school principals were appointed by a higher political hierarchy until 2008, when schools under state administration started selecting principals by elections. The main goal of this work is to evaluate whether changing this specific rule affected students proficiency levels. This is achieved by using a panel data and difference-in-differences approachs that compares state schools (treatment group) to city schools (control group) that did not face a selection rule change and thus kept having their principals politically appointed. The databases used are Prova Brasil 2007, 2009 and 2011, the first one prior and the other two former to the policy change. Our results suggest that students attending schools with principals that are selected and elected have slightly lower mean proficiency levels both in mathematics and in portuguese exams than those attending schools with appointed principals. This result, according to the literature, could be related to perverse effects of selecting school administrators by vote, such as corporatism, clientelism and politicization of the school environment

Aproximações teóricas sobre a questão ambiental internacional na sociedade global: de estocolmo 1972 ao rio de janeiro 2012

O artigo apresenta os principais elementos que compõem a questão ambiental na sociedade global, através de sua relação entre economia, meio ambiente e política internacional. A primeira parte expõe o debate ambiental no contexto internacional, enfocando-o a partir dos anos 1960, período em que os problemas ambientais surgem com mais intensidade e com eles os protestos sociais nos países centrais. Os encontros sobre política ambiental internacional foram realizados com mais frequência nos anos setenta como a conferência internacional sobre meio ambiente, a primeira chancelada pela ONU em Estocolmo, 1972. Nas décadas de 1970/1980 as autoridades governamentais reconheceram a urgência na resolução da crise ambiental e passaram a traçar estratégias para a mitigação e contenção da crise. A década de 1990 é marcada pela Conferência Rio 1992, que lançou o desenvolvimento sustentável, o qual recomenda que as gerações presentes devem se reproduzir sem comprometer a capacidade de reprodução das gerações futuras. Os encaminhamentos da terceira conferência internacional sobre meio ambiente (Johanesburgo, 2002) condicionaram a questão ambiental à necessidade da formulação de leis ambientais por parte dos Estados Nacionais e instrumentos económicos de gestão ambiental. Na Rio + 20, o tema central foi a economia verde, que surge como alternativa ao desenvolvimento sustentável e se relaciona a mitigação das mudanças climáticas, produção de baixo carbono, eficiência energética, energia renovável etc. O texto se encerra explanando sobre a questão ambiental internacional na sociedade global.

Autoavaliação institucional na dimensão do SINAES comunicação com a sociedade : estudo de múltiplos casos em instituições de ensino superior do Rio Grande do Norte

This study is about the institutional self-evaluation in Dimension 4, "Communication with Society", from the National System of Higher Education Evaluation SINAES, mandatory for all universities in Brazil. A multiple cases study was conducted with three institutions from Rio Grande do Norte, and the goal was to know how this evaluation is made, describing the concept for the evaluation of communication proposed by them, identifying controllers or emancipator aspects, categorizing methodological procedures and discussing the difficulties reported in the communication evaluation process. Coordinators of the institutions Evaluating Committees were interviewed and data categorized by means of qualitative content analysis. It was noted characteristics of the current controller, emancipator and hybrid designs in the three institutions for evaluation of communication, revealing the lack of a theoretical corpus that transits in accordance with the systemic perspective and epistemology of complexity from SINAES. It was found that the most frequently reported difficulties in the evaluation processes of communication are in the preparation stage, especially in the definition of indicators and tools and awareness work. The weakness in planning makes their own activities in the sector of communication become targets of assessment, forming goals poorly related with broader organizational goals. It was also concluded that the technical evaluation cannot override the issues associated with the broader issue of the complexity surrounding the assessment paradigm proposed by SINAES because contradictions and imperfections are part of the evaluation process and several references are current in the literature to support this view. Finally, it is said that objectives such as transparency and behavioral changes can rely on methodologies and techniques for research on the question of the construction of meaning