Aesthetic education and human development: (trans)formations of the power to act mediated by art

Author(s)

Carolina Nascimento Dias

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Educação
• Defense date: 2024-03-18

Examining board members

Ana Lúcia Horta Nogueira; Ana Luiza Bustamante Smolka; Eliane Regina Pereira; Elizabeth dos Santos Braga

• Advisor: Frédéric Saussez; Ana Lúcia Horta Nogueira

Abstract

The aim of this research is to understand and analyze teachers' worldviews on the role of aesthetic experiences in human development and how these experiences relate to the transformation of subjects and educational practices, creating other forms of relationship that increase the power to act. Based on a free theoretical-practical online course for teachers from Brazilian public schools, offered in 2021, we held ten meetings permeated by studies, experiences, dialogues and reflections on the possibilities of aesthetic education at school, through working with the sensitive. Based on the cultural-historical psychology of Vygotsky and his work on art and interlocutors from the historical-dialectical materialist perspective, we understand Aesthetic Education, linked to the processes of signification, as an ethical imperative capable of mobilizing sensitivities and opening up ways for people to connect with their histories and potential to articulate themselves in collectives, (re)signifying emotions, imagining and creating ways of life that contribute to the development of subjects. All the materials produced in the meetings, such as the recordings, the productions made by the teachers and the answers on the google forms were analyzed in order to explain the constitution of the processes of meaning in the interactions, taking into account the relationships between thought and language and the dynamics between inter- and intra- psychological functioning. The analytical process also considered dialogical discourse analysis, which is based on the contributions of Bakhtin's Circle, focusing on the production of meanings engendered in the discursive relationships that historical subjects establish. By systematizing the material, we created four categories of analysis: I) Teachers' awareness; II) Development of the power to act and transformation of the meanings of teachers' experiences, considering new possibilities for action; III) Ethical-aesthetic-political relationship and the formation of an aesthetic sense in/of everyday life; IV) Creation in adult life: the teachers' production process. Furthermore, in the final part of the analysis, we articulated the four categories through the axis Transformation of worldview: a unit of analysis? It was possible to see that the teachers' aesthetic experiences, collective studies, discursive interactions and productions enabled them to transform their emotions. Imagination and creation were understood and experienced as fundamental in expanding the possibilities of intervening in reality in order to transform it, and the affect of resistance was mobilized by the teachers to defend the education they believed in. They incorporated the premise that aesthetic education would not be disconnected from an ethical-political analysis of the conditions of existence. In this way, being indignant and resisting would be a way of betting on transformation and, ultimately, the freedom of the subjects. We therefore believe that this research provides elements for reflecting on the political character of affective dynamics and the extent to which schools can rethink their practices in order to create new possibilities for the people who make up the educational field to feel, think and act in a freer way (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 19/16143-1 - Aesthetic education and human development: expressions and (trans) formations mediated by art
• Grantee: Carolina Nascimento Dias
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate