Educação, cultura e parcerias público-privadas: o caráter contraditório do Programa Mais Cultura nas Escolas no município de Maceió (2013-2016)

Abstract

The More Culture in Schools Programme [Programa Mais Cultura nas Escolas (PMCE)] was an initiative of the Ministry of Culture (MinC) and Ministry of Education (MEC) in Brazil, involving public schools in the whole country, from 2013 to 2016. The research object was the experience of PMCE in public schools located in the city of Maceió, in Alagoas, in the northeast part of Brazil. More Culture in Schools Programme was linked both to the More Education Programme [Programa Mais Educação] and the Innovative Secondary Education Programme [Programa Ensino Médio Inovador]. PMCE aimed at embodying artistic and cultural activities into pedagogical projects of public schools. To achieve this, public-private partnerships (PPP) must be established between municipal public schools and cultural agents of civil society. In consequence of such specificity of the PMCE, the study pursued to answer the following research problem: which determinations can be identified in the public-private partnerships signed for the execution of the More Culture in Schools Programme? The main research objective is to analyze public-private partnerships as a specific way of education policy implementation, taking as reference the PMCE experience in the municipal education system of Maceió, from 2013 to 2016. The dialectical method was used to identify contradictions in the relationships between education and culture, as well as between State and civil society in the execution of the programme. The fieldwork, which provided the empirical basis for the research, involved the 11 public schools in Maceió in which the PMCE had been implemented from 2013 to 2016. In order to understand the movement between theory and practice, the methodology included the following procedures: literature review, documental analysis and data collection. The content analysis was the qualitative research technique used for the treatment of empirical data collected by means of interviews and focus group. The research sample included 27 people representing all the social segments involved in the programme: 1 representative of the Municipal Secretariat of Education (SEMED), 9 representatives of municipal schools, 5 cultural agents and 12 students from two municipal schools. The understanding of the dynamics both of the establishment and the execution of the More Culture in Schools Programme made possible to indicate that the PMCE was permeated by multiple contradictions. Among them, a significant one needs to be highlighted: the partnerships involving agents of culture in municipal public schools were able to value experiences linked to the local popular culture, instead of reinforcing civil society entities linked to the interests of the market. In contrast, this same feature served to legitimize market based public-private partnerships in other areas of social policies, including the education field.