Public schools of the 21st century: shifts in the educational project

Abstract

This article analyzes data from two qualitative educational studies conducted within the São Paulo state school system, drawing on observations of everyday school life, student focus groups, and documentary analysis. The findings indicate that a series of recent educational reforms – particularly secondary education reform – has produced significant changes in both the form and content of schooling. These changes deepen the subsumption of education to the demands and imperatives of financialized imperialist capital in the early decades of the twenty-first century, while promoting a pragmatic model of instruction at the expense of a humanistic, scientific, and critical education. Transformations such as these constrain the capacity of schooling for the working classes to support processes that empower new generations to engage critically with social inequality and marginalization. The results further suggest that a turning point is underway in the education of young people enrolled in Brazilian public schools.