Autonomia, participação popular e educação em contexto de reforma do Estado

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC

Medo e opnição pública no Brasil contemporâneo

Este artigo reporta às análises e conclusões formuladas a partir de observações feitas sobre violência criminal no recente período democrático da história nacional e que deram origem a dissertação de mestrado intitulada Cultura do Medo: Refl exões Sobre Violência Criminal, Controle Social e Cidadania no Brasil. Essa pesquisa possibilitou refl exões pertinentes a respeito da opinião pública relacionada à segurança, servindo também para um questionamento ético sobre a importância da participação cidadã no processo de consolidação da democracia brasileira e sobre novas formas de dominação existentes em nossa sociedade. Ao destacar como o medo da violência criminal interfere nas nossas relações sociais contemporâneas buscou-se identificá-lo como um instrumento recente de dominação no universo da política.

Democracia e participação nas escolas públicas brasileiras: as possibilidades da eleição direta para gestores escolares

After a long period of military dictatorship, the Brazilian people, following the redemocratization in the late 1980s, experimented the possibility of electing their political representatives. This experience of democracy and citizenship included in the electoral process, now, appear as one of the main challenges to make the Brazilian public schools more democratic and participative, through the election of school managers. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the historical aspects of the process of electing representatives in Brazil and the possibilities of direct elections for school managers. At first recovering the struggle of the Brazilian society in search of an effective political participation and, subsequently, pointing out the limits and possibilities of the introduction of direct elections for school managers as a mechanism to consolidate a more democratic school.

Teorias democráticas diante da nova gramática de organização da sociedade e da relação entre o Estado e a sociedade

This article is about the democratic theoretical conceptions reformulated in face of the new social rules in which actors showed up claiming repressed social repressed from the second half of the XX century. In this article an approach of the main contributions of the dimensions of the conception of democracy. As a result, we present that the institutional innovations that came from a process of institutionalism of democracy have built a participative and inclusive ideal of social groups that so far were apart from the decision process in politics.

A gestão democrática em uma escola de educação de jovens e adultos

This paper addresses the democratic school management within the school organizations. For this, initially made brief remarks on labor relations, the development of administrative and organizational theories. Later, we reflect on how the se labor relations are organized in the educational environment and what education theoretical contributions to the development of school management in Brazil. Therefore, we discuss the Brazilian educational policies that postulate and legitimate democratic school management. Studies of everyday guided the theoretical basis of this work, we wonder what school subject dealing with the discourse of democratic and participative management. Forward the hypothesis that participatory management should be a prominent space in schools, the aim of this study was to investigate the school management of a municipal school of Youth and Adult Education, which brings in your organization pedagogical foundation and educational principles espoused by Paul Freire. The specific objectives of the study are: a) to investigate and describe how is the organization's management of school youth and adults; b) understand the role of managers; c) check how teachers and administrators understand the process of managing this school. From a methodological point of view the daily life of the studies led this work to procedures and qualitative analysis of ethnographic referring to practices that have occurred in adult education school along with the theoretical foundation. Participated in this research members of the school management group and four teachers of Youth and Adult Education rooms. The results obtained showed that dialogue and democracy go together, that the school is an organization with different world views, which need to be primarily present in the identity of the schools. It was also possible to find different democratic practices in the management and organization of the Educational Center that make school subjects become...

A gestão democrática em uma escola de educação de jovens e adultos

This paper addresses the democratic school management within the school organizations. For this, initially made brief remarks on labor relations, the development of administrative and organizational theories. Later, we reflect on how the se labor relations are organized in the educational environment and what education theoretical contributions to the development of school management in Brazil. Therefore, we discuss the Brazilian educational policies that postulate and legitimate democratic school management. Studies of everyday guided the theoretical basis of this work, we wonder what school subject dealing with the discourse of democratic and participative management. Forward the hypothesis that participatory management should be a prominent space in schools, the aim of this study was to investigate the school management of a municipal school of Youth and Adult Education, which brings in your organization pedagogical foundation and educational principles espoused by Paul Freire. The specific objectives of the study are: a) to investigate and describe how is the organization's management of school youth and adults; b) understand the role of managers; c) check how teachers and administrators understand the process of managing this school. From a methodological point of view the daily life of the studies led this work to procedures and qualitative analysis of ethnographic referring to practices that have occurred in adult education school along with the theoretical foundation. Participated in this research members of the school management group and four teachers of Youth and Adult Education rooms. The results obtained showed that dialogue and democracy go together, that the school is an organization with different world views, which need to be primarily present in the identity of the schools. It was also possible to find different democratic practices in the management and organization of the Educational Center that make school subjects become...

Elections and Democracy in Brazil: Victor Nunes Leal and the 1945 Transition

This article discusses the necessary conditions for a democratic government to prevail, with the study Coronelismo: the Municipality and Representative Government in Brazil as the point of departure. The article seeks to identify the book's causal explanations for the emergence of democracy, and more precisely for regimes in which governments lose elections. Why were elections not truly competitive over the course of the Empire and the First Republic? Why did they change after the fall of the Estado Novo? Nunes Leal was one of the few Brazilian authors to explicitly tackle this challenge.

Participative site-specific agriculture analysis for smallholders

Site-specific agriculture has been adopted in a high-tech context using, for instance, in situ sensors, satellite images for remote sensing analysis, and some other technological devices. However, farmers and smallholders without the economic resources and required knowledge to use and to access the latest technology seem to find an impediment to precision agricultural practices. This article discusses the possibility of adopting precision agriculture (PA) principles for site-specific management but in a low technology context for such farmers. The proposed methodology to support PA combines low technology dependency and a participatory approach by involving smallholders, farmers and experts. The case studies demonstrate how the interplay of low technology and a participative approach may be suitable for smallholders for site-specific agriculture analysis.

Post-conventional Political Cultures via Processes of Direct Democracy: Theoretical Considerations Based on Jurgen Habermas and Lawrence Kohlberg

In this article, it is proposed to differentiate political cultures in two dimensions. First, inspired by Habermas' distinction of the contents of discourse, a distinction is suggested between moral, ethical-political and pragmatic elements of political culture as well as of an element of culture of balancing interests. Second, inspired by Kohlberg's stage models for the development of the individual moral consciousness and for moral culture, a distinction is similarly suggested between two pre-conventional, two conventional and two post-conventional collective stages of political culture. It can be shown that from a normative point of view, only deliberations made in a post-conventional political culture can produce reasonable or at least fair results. Conceptual considerations indicate processes of direct democracy as the method for promoting post-conventional political cultures. The more liberty that the citizens have to formulate and trigger processes of direct democracy, the more one can expect from them to generate post-conventional political cultures.

Liberalism, Marxism and Democratic Theory Revisited: Proposal of a Joint Index of Political and Economic Democracy

Liberalism and Marxism are two schools of thought which have left deep imprints in sociological, political and economic theory. They are usually perceived as opposite, rival approaches. In the field of democracy there is a seemingly insurmountable rift around the question of political versus economic democracy. Liberals emphasize the former, Marxists the latter. Liberals say that economic democracy is too abstract and fuzzy a concept, therefore one should concentrate on the workings of an objective political democracy. Marxists insist that political democracy without economic democracy is insufficient. The article argues that both propositions are valid and not mutually exclusive. It proposes the creation of an operational, quantifiable index of economic democracy that can be used alongside the already existing indexes of political democracy. By using these two indexes jointly, political and economic democracy can be objectively evaluated. Thus, the requirements of both camps are met and maybe a more dialogical approach to democracy can be reached in the debate between liberals and Marxists. The joint index is used to evaluate the levels of economic and political democracy in the transition countries of Eastern Europe.

Learning Democracy Together in School? : Student and Teacher Attitudes in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The principal aim of this study is to examine attitudes and values, through questionnaires, among students and teachers in the last grade of primary school (grade 8) regarding issues related to authoritarianism, democracy, human rights, children rights, conflict resolution and legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A second aim is to explore and analyze the role of the international community in the democratization and education processes in the light of globalization in this country through secondary sources of data, site visits and observations. Analysis of the student sample reveals suspicion towards democracy, especially when democracy was associated with politics and politicians. When the issue of democracy was de-contextualized from Bosnia and Herzegovina realities in the questionnaire, students showed more positive attitudes towards it. Students generally agreed with very strong authoritarian statements. High achieving students were more democratic, more socially responsible, more tolerant regarding attitudes towards religion, race and disabilities, and less authoritarian compared to low achievers. High achievers felt that they had influence over daily events, and were positive towards social and civil engagement. High achievers viewed politics negatively, but had high scores on the democracy scale. High achievers also agreed to a larger extent that it is acceptable to break the law. The more authoritarian students were somewhat more prone to respond that it is not acceptable to break the law. The major findings from the teacher sample show that teachers who agreed with non-peaceful mediation, and had a non-forgiving and rigid approach to interpersonal conflicts, also agreed with strong authoritarian statements and were less democratic. In general, teachers valued students who behave respectfully, have a good upbringing and are obedient. They were very concerned about the general status of education in society, which they felt was becoming marginalized. Teachers were not happy with the overloaded curricula and they showed an interest in more knowledge and skills to help children with traumatic war experiences. When asked about positive reforms, teachers were highly critical of, and dissatisfied with, the educational situation. Bosnia and Herzegovina is undergoing a transition from a state-planned economy and one party system to a market economy and a multi party system. During this transition, the country has become more involved in the globalization process than ever. Today the country is a semi-protectorate where international authorities intervene when necessary. The International community is attempting to introduce western democracy and some of the many complexities in this process are discussed in this study. Globalization processes imply contradictory demands and pressures on the education system. On one hand, economic liberalization has affected education policies —a closer alignment between education and economic competitiveness. On the other hand, there is a political and ideological globalization process underlying the importance of human rights, and the inclusiveness of education for all children. Students and teachers are caught between two opposing ideals — competition and cooperation.

Democracy Reconsidered : Britain, France, Sweden, and the EU

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether some positions in democratic theory should be adjusted or abandoned in view of internationalisation; and if adjusted, how. More specifically it pursues three different aims: to evaluate various attempts to explain levels of democracy as consequences of internationalisation; to investigate whether the taking into account of internationalisation reveals any reason to reconsider what democracy is or means; and to suggest normative interpretations that cohere with the adjustments of conceptual and explanatory democratic theory made in the course of meeting the other two aims. When empirical methods are used, the scope of the study is restricted to West European parliamentary democracies and their international affairs. More particularly, the focus is on the making of budget policy in Britain, France, and Sweden after the Second World War, and recent budget policy in the European Union. The aspects of democracy empirically analysed are political autonomy, participation, and deliberation. The material considered includes parliamentary debates, official statistics, economic forecasts, elections manifestos, shadow budgets, general election turnouts, regulations of budget decision-making, and staff numbers in government and parliament budgetary divisions. The study reaches the following conclusions among others. (i) The fact that internationalisation increases the divergence between those who make and those who are affected by decisions is not by itself a democratic problem that calls for political reform. (ii) That international organisations may have authorities delegated to them from democratic states is not sufficient to justify them democratically. Democratisation still needs to be undertaken. (iii) The fear that internationalisation dissolves a social trust necessary for political deliberation within nations seems to be unwarranted. If anything, views argued by others in domestic budgetary debate are taken increasingly serious during internationalisation. (iv) The major difficulty with deliberation seems to be its inability to transcend national boundaries. International deliberation at state level has not evolved in response to internationalisation and it is undeveloped in international institutions. (v) Democratic political autonomy diminishes during internationalisation with regard to income redistribution and policy areas taken over by international organisations, but it seems to increase in public spending. (vi) In the area of budget policy-making there are no signs that governments gain power at the expense of parliaments during internationalisation. (vii) To identify crucial democratic issues in a time of internationalisation and to make room for theoretical virtues like general applicability and normative fruitfulness, democracy may be defined as a kind of politics where as many as possible decide as much as possible.