“Neoliberalism and neoconservatism in contemporary brazilian education: a freirean study of base nacional comum curricular and the escola sem partido movement”

Abstract

This article proposes a critical reading of Base Nacional Comum Curricular, the Brazilian national curriculum, and the Escola sem Partido movement, two projects that, in our perspective, are in line with the current neoliberal and neoconservative trends in contemporary Brazilian educational policies. Returning to concepts developed by Paulo Freire, the educator who is at the heart of Escola sem Partido’s criticism of Brazilian education, we seek a more critical understanding of these documents, attempting to apprehend the values and interests that are at the core of these policies, in the light of Freire’s work. This study raises questions about the difficulty of critically reading texts which seize democratic language to make proposals that are neoliberal and neoconservative in practice. This challenge, however, underlines the importance of reading these and other current educational policies critically, so that we can establish a resistance movement that can live up to the threats democratic education faces today.