Gestão escolar democrática e participação dos sujeitos: uma análise a partir dos fundamentos filosóficos de John Dewey.

Abstract

This Master Thesis intended to point the contributions of John Dewey’s philosophical foundations about democracy in order to efetivate School Democratic Management. It aimed discuss democracy, the importance of individuals’ experiences in the construction of subjects’ democratic education. We looked for understanding what school management is, looked for revealing its historical process in Brazil and the relevance of the implementation in teaching institutions. In this work, management practices were analysed from participation in Participative Classes Councils in two Municipal Schools in Canguçu/RS, so that we can contribute with the improvement of educative and management, from theoretical serious study. The research has a bibliographical character, with a case study in reference to theories of democracy and also referring to Management. In Research Delineation or Introduction, we made an exposition about choosing the theme and about motivations to investigate processes of schooling management. Secondly, we gave treatment to what we named Dewey: life and times, in order to present the author’s thinking, situating him in Pragmatism. Following, with the items Democracy, Society, Education and School Management, we pointed the inseparable links that exist to the permanent happening of a democratic education apart of models we consider as only administrative, pointing out the difference between Management and Administration. With the reports and interviews of the two schools’ subjects (School A and School B), we proceed to an evaluation about the way managements’ processes go ahead and break out again, according to subjects’ understanding related to participation. In the last three parts of the dissertation, we bring conclusions in the direction of a) the references to the obtained data run into the analysis that Participative Class’s Council may represent a starting-point to initiatives of democratic management, b) Dewey’s philosophy of education offers a satisfactory and suitable support to help us to think about school management, mainly in what we call conditions or involved aspects in methodology, that are 1) liberty of examination, 2) tolerance to different opinions, 3) liberty of communication and 4) the distribution to each individual as last intelectual consumer of what was found.