THE HARASSMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AND STUDENT RESISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZIL

Abstract

In Brazil, after the 2016 coup, strategies are intensified to release the State from its constitutional duty to public, free, secular, and quality education. The government freezes education funding for 20 years and proposes a high school reform. To whom it matters and where do these initiatives come from? To reflect on these issues, I seek theoretical support in works by authors such as Gramsci and Paulo Freire; I use research results that address critically the strategies adopted by the World Bank (WB) and its Latin American partner, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), over the past three decades. Similarly, it impresses the learning routine, debates and cultural activities of high school students during the occupation of public high schools throughout the country. Therefore, I analyze the conservative ideas that underpin the educational counter-reform and the student protests to the neoliberal project.