Finalidades educativas da escola: a visão de professores dos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental e de líderes religiosos

Abstract

This research is linked to the Theories of Education and Pedagogical Processes Research Line, of the Graduate Program in Education at PUC Goiás. The educational purposes involve ideological, political and cultural interests and are a relevant component in the educational policies elaboration. When addressing the question of the educational purposes of school education, its focus falls on the vision that teachers of the early years of Elementary School and religious leaders have about the educational purposes of school and good public school. It starts with understanding, in all dimensions of the school, the work of teachers and student learning. The educational purposes of school education have been the subject of discussion and positions taken by various segments of society, not restricted to those who work at school. In this research, we chose to analyze the view of two segments: teachers in the early years of Elementary School and religious leaders. The general objective of the research was to analyze, based on the views expressed by teachers in the early years of elementary school and religious leaders, what educational purposes these agents attribute to the school and what they consider to be a good public school. The specific objectives were: to distinguish the conceptions of educational purposes expressed by teachers and religious leaders, analyzing possible convergences and divergences; analyze the vision of what a good public school is present in the ideas expressed by them; identify the meanings and senses present in the expressed ideas and contrast them with the sociocultural characterization of teachers and religious leaders; compare the ideas expressed by teachers and religious leaders, analyzing possible differences and similarities. The research was of the descriptive-exploratory type, of a predominantly qualitative nature, carried out with participants from four cities in Goiás, 37 teachers from the early years of municipal public schools and 11 religious leaders from the community surrounding these schools. Data were collected through questionnaire and interview. The analysis of the questionnaires revealed that the educational purposes of the school were practically the same with regard to the two groups, since both put the first purpose of forming a critical and reflective citizen and, the second, preparing the student for the job market. As for the interviews, teachers and religious leaders expressed more divergent opinions. Teachers see socializing, values, accumulated knowledge, integrating, teaching contents well as the school's purposes, which is consistent with some of the conceptions of the school's educational purposes expressed by a small number of religious leaders, since a large part of this group sees how educational purposes of the school preparing for the job market, teaching moral values, unlinked to any kind of ideology, love of country, etc. There were, in the senses and meanings expressed by the two segments, similarities, divergences and complementarities, evidencing a contradiction between what they think and believe in relation to public school education. By contrasting the ideas of the two segments with their sociocultural characterization, it was found that their ideas about educational purposes and a good school have both similarities and differences, convergences and divergences, and religious leaders diverge more incisively, especially with regard to what the school should or should not teach. It is concluded that there are different conceptions between teachers and religious leaders about the educational purposes of the school, which, consequently, also implies the understanding of what a good school is, since these ideas are intertwined