Limits and possibilities of action research in the context of the Reform of Secondary Education in the state of São Paulo.

• Grant number: 25/06201-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: Márcia Aparecida Jacomini
• Grantee: Beatriz Lourenço dos Santos
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/11390-0 - Curriculum changes and the improvement of public education, AP.EP

Abstract

In 2017, the reform of secondary education was approved by Law No. 13,415 (Brazil, 2017). In 2024, it was reformulated by Law 14.945/2024 (Brasil, 2024). The reform of secondary education brought about several changes at this stage of basic education, including the implementation of the Training Itineraries, replacing the subjects and content of General Basic Education. In this context, the action-research project "Curricular Changes and Improvement of Public Education" was funded by FAPESP (process 2021/11390-0). This research, carried out with and in seven schools in the São Paulo state network, seeks to build with the school communities alternative proposals for implementing the reform in order to mitigate the problems it has caused for the students' education and the organization of pedagogical work. I actively participated in this project for two years as a FAPESP Level 1 Technical Training Fellow. Among other activities, I contributed to the survey on how the action research proposals for training itineraries were used by teachers in 2023. In this sense, I did a Scientific Initiation on the repercussions of the action research proposals on teaching practices, especially with regard to the realization of the curricular components of the training itineraries that year. However, in 2024 there was a change in the curriculum matrix by resolutions no. 52/2023 (São Paulo, 2023) and no. 53/2024 (São Paulo, 2024), bringing new arrangements to the "New-New High School". In view of this, this Scientific Initiation project aims to analyze and understand how the teachers from the schools participating in the action research received and used the critical analysis and proposal material for the curricular components of the training itineraries in the year 2025. To this end, as part of the action research, information will be gathered by means of a questionnaire for teachers and interviews with school managers about the use of the research material. The data will be organized into categories based on the objective of the research and the content of the material collected in order to develop an understanding of how action research can contribute to the school's pedagogical practices, with a view to improving public education.