Public Culture in the Schools' Occupation Movement (São Paulo, 2015)

• Grant number: 17/15185-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: July 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Behavior
• Principal Investigator: Rúrion Soares Melo
• Grantee: Jonas Marcondes Sarubi de Medeiros
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/11611-3 - Public sphere and reconstruction: on the constitution of a reconstructive paradigm within Critical Theory, AP.TEM

Abstract

This postdoctoral project focuses on the São Paulo's high school students who occupied public schools at the end of 2015. The research is linked to the FAPESP Thematic Project number 2014/11611-3 "Public Sphere and Reconstruction: on the Constitution of the Reconstructive Paradigm in the Critical Theory Field". From a theoretical point of view, it seeks to develop a qualitative approach to political culture, in the conceptual form of public culture. Inspired by a pragmatic perspective, public culture is understood as the intersubjectively shared symbolic forms that enable and limit processes of public problematization. From an empirical point of view, the research will revolve around the following dimensions of public culture in the movement: (i) the intense valorization of the public school system by this social group; (ii) the centrality of gender and sexuality issues in their collective action; (iii) its complex relationship with institutional politics; and (iv) the transnational diffusion of the schools' occupation repertoire by means of an imaginary about the experience of Chilean high school students. Thirty semi-structured and group interviews were already collected in November and December 2015 in schools while they were occupied in five municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, including all regions of the state capital. This project proposes to accomplish a content analysis of this dense and unpublished material. It will be a continuation and deepening of a research that has already resulted in a published book and article about the occupied schools movement in São Paulo.