A gestão das escolas públicas militarizadas do PECIM em Manaus: um estudo na perspectiva dos gestores

Abstract

This doctoral thesis aimed to analyze the management model of the Civic-Military Schools Program (PECIM) in the state of Amazonas through interviews with the civilian educational administrations of the civic-military schools (ECIM). The narratives generated in the research highlighted as a common point that the process of militarization of schools represents a set of actions intended to address complex issues of everyday school life with controversial alternatives. The school administrations presented relevant problematizations regarding their coexistence with the military; however, the lack of expectations in resolving issues related to administrative and pedagogical routines promoted the PECIM model as an alternative in the face of the deterioration of the Public School Network, despite its contradictions.The theoretical-methodological framework is based on historical-dialectical materialism, drawing on the concepts of the militarization of education as an ideological apparatus of the State (Althusser, 1985) and the role of PECIM as a cultural hegemonic construct of neoconservatism in Brazil (Gramsci, 1988, 2000). The research design included both documentary and field research, supported by official PECIM records, the State Department of Education and School Sports (SEDUC-AM), the institutions involved in the study, and fieldwork in the participating schools. The study focused on three schools located in Manaus that adopted the PECIM model since the beginning of its national implementation (2020), generating further insights for analyzing the implementation of the project’s directives. The militarization process of schools in Amazonas is part of the national civic-military schools program under the Bolsonaro government (2019–2022), expanding its neoconservative agenda. In the Legal Amazon (AL), forty-nine PECIM schools were identified, seven of which are located in Amazonas.The ideological discourse justifying the militarization of schools as a means to confront structural social problems in public schools represents an attempt to link neoconservative ideology with the purported resolution of educational challenges within a reality of unequal and deteriorated educational quality under neoliberalism. The propositions of the military doctrinal model, aimed at convincing society of its authoritarian state project, seek to establish a consensus that militarized social control allegedly offers efficiency for the existing historical conditions.The analysis of the implementation of school militarization, which was organized prior to Bolsonarism’s rise to national power, indicates an instrumentalization of Brazilian neoconservatism in steering a new dominant social class through education and reactionary political agendas. Thus, this research supports the position of the National Research Network on the Militarization of Education (RePME) in classifying PECIM as a military-type school, regardless of the Program’s rhetoric distinguishing the civic-military project from other ongoing school militarization initiatives in the country.In the neoliberal context, the dismantling of public education has created fertile ground for a conformism among workers within a deteriorated state, with limited political motivation to fulfill labor and social rights in the context of basic education.