Notes on conservatism in Brazilian education and the case of the Non-partisan School movement: legacies and meanings

Abstract

The reflection exercise undertaken here sought to examine the meanings and legacies brought about by the existence, strong adherence, and dissemination of the ideas of the non-partisan school movement in Brazilian society. To this end, a series of investigations were conducted on the expansion of the non-partisan school movement during the 2000s and 2010s in contrast to the economic, social, and political context of the period. The research was developed based on a bibliographic survey and analysis of sources, including official documents and materials published in newspapers and magazines, in addition to the movement's own productions. Based on the investigations and analyses, we consider that the non-partisan school movement acted as a catalyst for conservative practices and actions, reactive to the advancement of social policies during the governments Lula da Silva (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016), articulated with the search for hegemony by certain bourgeois factions of Brazilian society, who understand schools as a privileged space for the dissemination and naturalisation of a specific morality, congruent with their interests.