Entre reformas, ataques e uma pandemia : análise do trabalho de um coletivo docente em uma Escola Cidadã Integral à luz do Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo e das Ciências do Trabalho

Abstract

Since the 1990s, under the strong influence of multilateral organizations in a context of open borders and internationalization of markets, education has undergone profound reforms, not only in Brazil but also in other countries in Latin America, to adapt to a global movement aimed at reducing the State’s presence in social policies and increasing private participation. The four-year period from 2018 to 2021, during which we collected data for this research, posed significant challenges for workers in the high school sector in our country. In addition to ongoing reforms, several other factors have profoundly impacted this work context, including: the implementation of the New Secondary Education (NEM), the adaptation to the recently created BNCC; the attacks by the Escola Sem Partido movement on schools; and the covid-19 pandemic. In light of these concerns, this research aims to investigate how work is perceived by a teaching collective at a Full-Time Citizen School in Paraíba. The objective unfolds into the following specific aims: (a) to analyze teachers’ perceptions regarding the collective, their peers, and their work; (b) to examine how obstacles affect teachers’ agency; and (c) to comprehend how in-person perceptions persist or transform in emergency remote teaching (ERE). This study is within the realm of Applied Linguistics (Celani, 1992; Moita Lopes, 2006), drawing on Sociodiscursive Interactionism (ISD) and Work Sciences (Lousada, 2006; Machado, 2007, 2009) as its theoretical framework. Thus, our research builds upon discussions in the Activity Clinic and Clot (2001, 2006, 2007, 2017), Amigues (2004), and Bronckart (1999, 2006, 2008, 2012). Methodologically, this is a qualitative-interpretative case study employing unstructured interviews and Instruction to the Double interviews with four teachers from a Full-Time Citizen School in the metropolitan region of João Pessoa as data collection instruments. Analysis of the collaborators’ discourse, through person marks, voices, and modalisations, revealed a cohesive collective that, through language practices, devises collective strategies to counter threats, attacks, and institutional persecution, while simultaneously reasserting prescriptions from spaces of collective development that function as instances of power of acting (agendi potentia) development (Spinoza, 2009) and the cultivation of shared aspirations and values. The knowledge acquired through university training and mutual training activities at school emerge as factors that foster cohesion and reinforce the collective, while the Department of Education and advisors of the Monitoring Cycle Meetings (RCA) are perceived as sources of conflict and challenges. Fragility in maintaining employment relationships, difficulty accessing digital tools, and the vulnerability of the mental and physical health of professionals, students, and their families emerged as challenges in the context of ERE. In summary, based on the findings, we propose a continuum of criticality for teacher group work. In the analysed context, the collective’s aspirations are frequently questioned, yet even in the face of obstacles and prohibitions, the horizon of this collective points toward heightened criticality, akin to the characteristics described for revolutionary collectives.