A política nacional de alfabetização como expressão de um projeto conservador: uma análise sobre a rede municipal de ensino de Pelotas

Abstract

This dissertation, developed within the Graduate Program in Education (PPGE) at the Federal University of Pelotas, in the research line Curriculum, Educational Policies, Professionalization and Teaching Work, aims to examine the influence of the National Literacy Policy (PNA), as an expression of a conservative project, on the educational policies of the Municipal Department of Education and Sports of Pelotas/RS (SMED) and on the pedagogical practices of literacy teachers in the municipality. This is a qualitative study, conducted through bibliographic review, documentary research, and fieldwork. Data from the National Literacy Network Survey were complemented by information produced through discussion groups and interviews with municipal teachers during the field research. For data analysis, Discursive Textual Analysis (DTA) was adopted, articulated with the Policy Cycle Approach (Bowe; Ball; Gold, 1992) and the Theory of Enactment (Ball; Maguire; Braun, 2016), in order to understand how the policy was received, interpreted, and enacted by teachers in the context of everyday practice. The findings reveal tensions between the normative guidelines of the PNA—marked by a technicist logic and linked to a conservative societal project—and the knowledge, values, and practices of teachers, which sustain conceptions of literacy, multiliteracies, and the critical formation of children. The study concludes that, although phonics-based approaches had already been part of teaching practices, alongside other perspectives, before the implementation of the PNA, the policy was not able to consolidate it as the exclusive method in the school network investigated. Teachers resisted the imposition of a single framework, rejecting its exclusivity and criticizing the standardization attempt proposed by the PNA. Furthermore, they condemned the conception of literacy defended by the policy, characterized by a technical and mechanical process of coding and decoding, disconnected from its social function, as well as the reduction of teacher autonomy in pedagogical processes. These positions show that, even in the face of centralizing guidelines imposed by the PNA, albeit weakly developed in the Municipal School System of Pelotas, educators maintain a critical stance, reaffirming their pedagogical authority and contributing to the re-signification of policies in everyday school life.