School processes as educational quality indicators: a study about citizenship education

Author(s)

Malena Xavier de Carvalho

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2015-08-04

Examining board members

Romualdo Luiz Portela de Oliveira; Carlos Roberto Jamil Cury; Jose Marcelino de Rezende Pinto

• Advisor: Romualdo Luiz Portela de Oliveira

Abstract

The perceptions about educational quality in Brazil have been influenced by matters of access and permanence of students in the public systems, and currently they mostly refer to the learning provided by schooling whether this learning is taken in terms of tests scores or in broader senses, such as the educational purposes that comprise the right to education as stated by the Brazilian Constitution. The Brazilian State has a central role in ensuring this right, specially by the means of public policies (among others); it is noticeable, however, that public evaluation policies and related educational indicators have been involved in some controversies. One of these controversies pertains to the educational quality standard more widely used in Brazil IDEB; this indicator is composed by measures of approval and cognitive performance in tests, and does not adequately infer whether certain educational purposes are being guaranteed through public schooling. Nevertheless, this work sustain the relevance of indicators as a support to reach educational quality standards although stressing associated difficulties such as to quantify dimensions of educational quality less approachable by measures, as the formation of values. To cope with this question, it is assumed that the dimensions of educational quality are interconnected, and then proposed the hypothesis that educational outcomes less accessible by measures may be inferred from its related educational processes. This work will ascertain this hypothesis taking education for citizenship as an illustrative case. In this sense, it will identify, from conceptual and empirical references, educational processes relevant to education for citizenship, and highlight potential tools to access this processes in a standardized manner, to explore the possibility to provide measures that could compose a more comprehensive quality indicator concerning the magnitude of the right to education. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/22091-5 - Quality of Education: investigating the extent of processes and it´s possible indicators
• Grantee: Malena Xavier de Carvalho
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master