High school curriculum, governmentality and neoliberal subjectivation: Brazil’s Midwest case

This thesis, entitled High School Curriculum, Governmentality and Neoliberal Subjectivation: Brazil’s Midwest Case, is part of the research group State, Policies and History of Education, of the Graduate Program in Education, at the Federal University of Goiás. Among the mechanisms for materializing the reform of Secondary Education, put into practice through Provisional Measure No. 746, in September 2016, later converted into Law No. 13.415, in February 2017, there is the institution of a Common National Curriculum Base for High School (BNCC-EM), approved in December 2018. The BNCC-EM is effectively materialized in schools through the Curriculum Documents proposed by the States of the federation for the Secondary Education. Considering the impact of the institution of these new curricular paradigms for young Brazilian students, mainly regarding the neoliberal discourse propagated through the reformist context and the approval of a basis for the secondary curriculum, an attempt was made to investigate the proposed curricular policies in the states of the Midwest region of Brazil after the approval of BNCC-EM. Specifically, the objective was to analyze the Curriculum Documents approved by the States of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás and the Federal District, seeking to examine the discourses proposed by them and how they approach or distance themselves from the neoliberal discursive practice instituted by the secondary reform and BNCC-EM. The theoretical framework that permeates the understanding of the researched context considers the premise that the State is crossed by neoliberal ideas and, at the same time, constituting itself through its norms, reflects and materializes them in the policies it promotes, thus contributing to the institution of subjectivities that are consistent with them, as discussed by Dardot and Laval (2016), Safatle (2021), among other authors. The curriculum field, as well as the field of education, in this way, is conceived in the midst of disputes for hegemony and, therefore, is understood here as a construction that reflects interests, as pointed out by Apple (2006), but which also builds discourses, as analyzed by Lopes (2019) and Lopes and Macedo (2011). As a methodological instrument, but also as a field that contributes to the theoretical understanding of the research, the Critical Discourse Analysis proposed by Norman Fairclough (1989, 2010, 2012, 2016) was used, understanding that its contributions are consistent with the critical perspective with which it was intended to develop the discussion and the problematizations done. The analyzes indicate that the Curriculum Documents of the Midwest region of Brazil are close to the reformist neoliberal context and, more specifically, to BNCC-EM, while using terms and expressions indiscriminately, as well as discourses that naturalize and legitimize the ills that are consequence of the neoliberal context, seeking to institute subjectivities that incorporate values ​​of adaptability and resilience, even though coated with the defense of responsibility and flexibility which would contribute to the development of Brazilian society. However, as these documents were built by different agents of the educational field, other discourses were also observed that, even timidly, seek to contrast the meanings that intend to be hegemonic, putting on the agenda structural questions of the neoliberal order that continue to impact the educational field of the Secondary Education, what could contribute to the establishment of new discursive practices that effectively favor young Brazilian students.

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