This article has the intention of study in the social representations that the teachers of the Lower School of the Colégio de Aplicação build over the democratic public school having as its research field the Colégio de Aplicação of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Colégio de Aplicação of the State University of Rio de Janeiro. The main objective of the present study was to capture the dynamics of the representation construction of a democratic school, and at the same time to search for its historical and ideological motivations and the changes it suffered along the time; and also to understand the values, the rules, the behavior, the symbols and the resistances of the lower school teachers towards the democratization process of the contemporary pedagogical practices. The lower school teachers representations about the democratic school follow the present education project that is being developed at the CAps or the one that has been already applied in another historical moment. This project in itself becomes the reference of the public, democratic and the quality school. In the crossing of the speeches were born the analytical categories: alterity, power and resistance. It was concluded that the democratic education could not be based on any notion of non-history and transcendental truth or authority. The school democracy is a tension process born by the power relationship within the institution. Among the investigated group, were encountered representations that maintain the CAps' original selective and elitization function, and therefore reinforce the social exclusion; Other representations defend a differentiated formation in line with the CAp student original social class and a third group that reinforces the possibility of the implementation of an educational project that advances in the direction of the introduction and recognition of the lower class students into the school activities and daily life.
Colégios de Aplicação; Democratic public school; Teacher's representations of democratic practices