The foundational world in Brazil: transformations of the State and formation of technical-scientifical circuits of construction of educational problems

• Grant number: 21/01828-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: August 01, 2021
• End date: January 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Belem Hey
• Grantee: Pedro Grunewald Louro
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/05206-5 - The foundational world in Brazil: transformations of the State and formation of technical-scientifical circuits of construction of educational problems, BE.EP.DD

Abstract

The project aims to examine the transformations of the Brazilian State, taking into consideration the intersections between changes in groups of agents engaged to participate in decision-making processes and changes in modalities of public action instrumentation. Thus we shall analyze the role performed by Unibanco Institute and Lemann Foundation on disputes and controversies surrounding the basic school. Since 2008, activities of philanthropic foundations have been the object of several researchers, in parallel with growing visibility and intensity whereby these organizations have intervened on the technical and consultative bodies of the State, and even on the legitimacy with public opinion through media and academic incursions of their spokesperson. As a transnational phenomenon, the foundational world presents varying degrees in the way it participates within educational policies, but they converge in aiming at a propositional and normative action in the sector. This universe is characterized by a reticular logic, through affiliations with disparate institutions, and by a division of labor in various priorities of social policy as well. The adopted approach is informed by Bourdieu's and Boltanski's frameworks, that is, the first allows to analyze the material and symbolical properties of agents who dispute several modalities of conception and orientation of State action; while the latter allows to examine how the political institutions appeal to scientific and technical institutions in order to reinterpret criticisms circulating at social life and to justify changes. Having as a general object the transformations of the State stemming from the role of foundations on the educational universe, the proposed project will proceed to reconstruct the social trajectories of the agents who embody the interventions of Unibanco and Lemann (I) and to codify the way through which they justify their activism on educational universe in the face of criticisms (II). By investigating the foundational world, the present research, proposed under an international cotutelle agreement with a French institution, seeks to contribute to debates about the social composition of elites, taking into account their inflections and permanencies regarding to transformations of the State, as well as their legitimation strategies puting at trial by a society in which criticism has become routine. (AU)