Poverty, gender, and education: participation and knowledge building in the schools of Porto Alegre, Brazil
| Authors | Type | Stream | Full Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moira Wilkinson, Luis Armando Gandin | Open call | Poverty | n/a |
Aim of research
This paper deals with the issue of participation in governance structures conceived as a way of struggling against intersecting inequalities (class, race and gender) and discusses the way participation and knowledge building takes place for the mothers and for the students of the municipal schools of Porto Alegre, Brazil. During 16 years, the Popular Administration (a coalition of leftist parties led by the Workers’Party) adopted and advanced the Citizen School model of public schooling. Within this model the Popular Administration opened schools to provide access to more children, created transformed school governance mechanisms and curricula, including site-based governance teams called Schools Councils, and empowered parents and students through participation on the school councils in the local schools. Through a multi-sited study of the Citizen School experience we focus on the crucial relationship between participation and the reality of poverty which shapes the lives of the female School Council representatives—mostly mothers—and their children who occupy these spaces. At this intersection between poverty and participation, we specifically examine the issue of knowledge (and what is understood as knowledge) as a key element for participation both in the newly created democratic structures (for women) and in the classrooms (for girls and boys).
The goal of these systemic initiatives was to break away from traditional school structures that are intrinsically hierarchical and exclusionary and that reproduce social inequalities. The Administration’s intention was to ‘invert priorities’ of public education by forging a new culture of participation that would better reflect the goals of the communities in which they were situated. This can be seen in the creation of empowered School Councils, with the participation of parents and students, in the direct election of principals, in the establishment of cycles of formation (as a way of fighting against high dropout rates and socially exclusive forms of evaluation), learning laboratories, and many other mechanisms. The process of transforming cultures relates to the way people understand their roles and operate their lives in schools.
Participants or Sampling Strategy
Coordinators from the local ministry of education principals, curriculum coordinators, teachers, students’ mothers.
Methodology
Literature reviews related to the concepts of democracy, participation, social inclusion, critical pedagogy, knowledge, and common sense. The research studies employed various qualitative methodologies including document analysis of the texts that explicitly present the Popular Administration’s concepts of the Citizen School, education, participation, and inclusion; interviews with coordinators from the local ministry of education, principals, curriculum coordinators, teachers, students’ mothers; observation of classrooms and of School Council meetings.
Limitations
Moira Wilkinson is from the United States and did her research in Brazil. While all participants in her study were female like her, the fact that she came from a different country may have affected what and how much participants shared with her. Luis Armando Gandin is from Porto Alegre and his original research did not particularly focus on issues of gender. Furthermore, being a local and a university professor may have influenced what teachers and school council members told him in interviews.
Research Findings
Our research shows that the changes in structures and mechanisms did not translate automatically in a new culture where voices from different segments (mothers, for example) have equal space nor did it produce a uniform feeling among them that they could legitimately occupy and contribute to these governance structures.
School Councils were in most cases a space where teachers and principals’ voices were heard and where elected mothers often merely ratified the decisions that were taken by these two segments. Despite the transformed institutional structure, newly empowered identities were not automatically forged by these mothers, because they felt they did not “posses” the knowledge to influence the decisions. Furthermore, despite their doubts about the quality of education being offered to their children, these women did not feel they could openly challenge teachers or the school administration in the School Councils. Our research points to the crucial question of knowledge and what is considered knowledge in the space of the municipal schools. Our findings can be summarized by four thesis statements:
- The discussion of what counts as knowledge is central aspect of addressing gender inequality and poverty. The Citizen School experience takes this issue seriously in the construction of its curriculum, but does not seem to be able to extend this new understanding to the participation of poor women in the school’s governance structures;
- Social class and gender identity construction and socialization create intangible barriers to women (and children, or women on behalf of their children) as they assume leadership positions in the administration of public schools;
- Social class and gender identity construction and socialization contribute to the way people conceive of knowledge and the way they occupy public spaces, such as School Councils. This class and gender socialization shapes the way they conceive of and pursue their right to education;
- Transformation of schools structures (access, governance, and knowledge building) is a crucial step toward fighting against intersecting inequalities of class, race, and gender, but these alone are not enough to change the culture of schools in terms of the participation of poor women, who are the overwhelming majority of parents who take part in the newly created mechanisms. Furthermore, it does not seem to convince mothers that the transformed school’s structures are the best way of educating their children.
