Making neoliberalism work “within us”: the pedagogy of nonprofit civil society organizations and teacher education ^{1 2 3}

Abstract

The article presents and discusses the results of a research that aimed to examine the pedagogy carried out by nonprofit civil society organizations in the niche of teacher education and the possible effects of truth that it intends to disseminate. The empirical corpus gathered documents both on the functioning of these institutions as well as the implementation strategies of such pedagogy. The theoretical-methodological inspiration came from the Foucauldian production on discourse and from studies on pedagogies. The thesis defended is that the organizations investigated carry out a hybrid pedagogy that produces its own necessity and operates in order to effect learning through cyclical processes that have as a starting (and arrival) point pre-established models. Furthermore, the thesis proposes that the pedagogy analyzed, by disseminating learning related to neoliberal logic precepts, would be one of the ways to make neoliberalism work “within us”.

Keywords
teacher education; nonprofit civil society organizations; hybrid pedagogy; neoliberalism and education; cultural studies in education

Resumo

Este artigo apresenta e discute resultados de uma pesquisa que objetivou examinar a pedagogia efetivada por organizações da sociedade civil sem fins lucrativos no nicho da formação docente e os possíveis efeitos de verdade que ela pretende disseminar. Seu corpus empírico reuniu documentos tanto sobre o funcionamento dessas instituições quanto relacionados às estratégias de implementação de tal pedagogia. A inspiração teórico-metodológica adveio da produção foucaultiana sobre discurso e dos estudos sobre pedagogias. A tese defendida é a de que as organizações investigadas efetivam uma pedagogia híbrida que produz sua própria necessidade e opera no intuito de efetivar aprendizagens por meio de processos cíclicos que têm como ponto de partida (e de chegada) modelos pré-estabelecidos. Ademais, compõe a tese a proposição de que a pedagogia analisada, ao disseminar aprendizagens relacionadas a preceitos da lógica neoliberal, seria uma das formas de fazer o neoliberalismo funcionar “dentro de nós”.

Palavras-chave
formação de professores; organizações da sociedade civil sem fins lucrativos; pedagogia híbrida; neoliberalismo e educação; estudos culturais em educação

Introduction

When searching for the descriptor “teacher education” in a search site, what results could we find? Advertisements of courses, sites of teacher training/education, scientific and journalistic articles, among other occurrences. In fact, this is what we found when doing this search⁴ to delimitate the object of the thesis that originated this article⁵. However, we were surprised to find among the “other occurrences” the repetition of results pointing to sites of nonprofit civil society organization (NPCSO), such as Fundação Lemann, Fundação Victor Civita, Todos Pela Educação, Instituto Inspirare, Instituto Avisa lá, Labor Educacional, and Worldfund⁶.

Faced by this situation and motivated by Foucauldian criticism (2006), that is, “...to show that things are not as evident as we believe, to make it in a way that what is believed to be real in itself, is not longer” (p. 180), we have started to pay attention on the participation of this type of organization in teacher education initiatives. We have then realized that these institutions were more involved with education (and, consequently teacher training) than we could possibly imagine. The impression is that this type of initiatives was everywhere. They were shown and praised on TV during the programs and on the commercial breaks, were on public schools in neighboring cities, and were even present in school libraries and the internet⁷.

Furthermore, not only the initiatives seemed to multiply, but also the presence of the representative of these institutions in media debates on education. For example, the articles “Specialists criticize the absence of MEC in the presidential plan for education”⁸ and “A good teacher education is continuous and practical”⁹, respectively published at the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo and at the site Porvir. On the former, the then-coordinator of the movement Todos Pela Educação, Alejandra Velasco, and the executive director of Instituto Inspirare, Anna Penido, are heard. On the later, one of the ideas of the project coordinator in the teacher education area of Fundação Lemann, Mila Molina, is even used as the title. We also highlight as an example of this phenomenon the article “Education is based on guesses, not in science, says Viviane Senna”¹⁰, published at the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, which brings the hypothesis of the president of Instituto Ayrton Senna on education.

Crossing these data with the discussion we have been holding in the research group a Cultura e pedagogia na modernidade líquida (Culture and pedagogy in liquid modernity) we started to suspect that we are going through a certain flexibilization on what institutions could act as teacher trainers nowadays. This would allow non-schooling institutions ¹¹ to enter in the niche of teacher education/training.

Mobilized by this suspicion we did a new research¹² looking for other institutions with the same characteristics that could also be connected to teacher education. Besides this, we wanted to identify the strategies they used. This search added Fundação Roberto Marinho, Instituto Ayrton Senna, and Fundação Maurício Sirotsky Sobrinho¹³ to the previous results. We have found that the institutions selected had multiple initiatives basically connected to five strategies: a) Awards and praising of successful experiences; b) Conduct and/or disseminate research; c) Publication of magazines, books, and other documents; d) Participation in debates on education, and; e) Offer of training programs and independent courses. Considering Steinberg (1997) proposition that there is pedagogical intentionality in different places where power is organized and disseminated, these strategies would especially be implied in the process of teacher training. After all, by highlighting and praising certain behaviors and practices, they are teaching the ‘most correct ways’ of being and acting.

Pairing this understanding with the suspicion related to the flexibility of institutions that could act as teacher trainers nowadays, we could ponder that the NPCSOs would be placing into action a specific type of pedagogy on teacher education. Pedagogy is here understood as a process of creating subjects and guiding behaviors that “...involve a set of knowledge and practices that each individual is incited to operate on themselves to become the subject of certain discourses” (Camozzato, 2014, p. 575). But what would that pedagogy be? What type of subject would they want to produce? In what way would it act to guide teachers’ behaviors? What types of knowledge and practices are teachers incited to operate on themselves through this pedagogy? What discourses would be considered as true? What types of learning would it disseminate? What are its possible relations with the context we live?

Instigated by such questions, our research object became the teacher education implemented by NPCSOs aiming to find possible answers to the following questions: what type of pedagogy is enacted by NPCSOs on teacher education? How does this pedagogy work? What possible effects of truth does it intend to disseminate?

In this sense, we composed our empirical research data from physical and digital documents: a) material available online about the operation of the ten NPCOSs identified in the preliminary research; b) online and printed materials on teacher education from these organizations, and; c) media material on education presenting the opinions of their representatives.

We were inspired by Foucauldian work on discourse to analyze these documents. That is, among other things, the documents were researched considering that the discourses presented not only name the objects or connect our thought to the thing thought, but also establish the objects, form our thoughts, “mold our way of building the world, understand it, and talk about it” (Veiga-Neto, 2011, p. 93). Therefore, the analysis started from the assumption that the discourses disseminated by the materials researched do not announce “truths” on teacher education, but create them. After all, as shown by Foucault (2012a), the relation between language and the objects described by it would not be solely a description but a constitution.

Pedagogy and pedagogies

What if, contrary to a commonality, we now have many places and names from which pedagogy could work and operate? What if we think this as a condition of current pedagogies, of the pedagogies we enact in this precise moment?

(Camozzato, 2014, p. 574).

Instigated by the questions of the epigraph above, we intend to discuss the concept of pedagogy highlighting some displacements occurred to it, which allow us to think about the existence of pedagogies, as the one we are analyzing. To start our discussion, we call the attention to the fact that, ratifying its connection with the conjecture in which it was established, the Modern Pedagogy¹⁴ established itself as the way to guide people from a stage of rational minority to a majority one (Camozzato & Costa, 2013b). A stage pointed out as the necessary condition to enact the project of the Modern world, encompassing, especially, the constitution of State reason and the Modern subject.

However, considering that “...the concept of pedagogy is mobile and is implicated with the demands imposed by each society to form people” (Camozzato, 2015, p. 503), as the transformations that took place in the 14^th and 15^th centuries have made possible the Pedagogy of the 16^th century¹⁵, contemporary cultural transformations have allowed for some displacements on the concept of pedagogy. From the “art that invents and models ‘modern subjects’, regulating their times and spaces, ordering their lives, steering and guiding their behavior” (Camozzato & Costa, 2013b, p. 163), it starts to be thought as something plural, that can maybe be described as multiple arts/pedagogies implied in the production of the multiple contemporary subjects. For amidst an atmosphere in which truths are pluralized, it makes more sense to think on pedagogies (in plural), than a sole pedagogy, as there would not be a” better stage” that everyone needs to reach, much less a sole type of subject expected.

Thus, instead of a (legislative) Pedagogy other types of pedagogies (interpreters) would be on the table (Camozzato, 2015). Alluding to the role of the intellectuals in post-modernity, as indicated by Camozzato (2015), these pedagogies would simultaneously renounce the ambition to encompass the universal, and dislocate its concerns to particularities and specific truths. This is exactly the case of the pedagogy we analyzed, considering that it aims to act in a niche of education: teacher training/education, aiming to establish particular truths: those produced and disseminated by nonprofit civil society organizations.

However, we highlight that the transposition of the legislative Pedagogy to the interpreter pedagogies do not imply an abandonment of their characteristic marks: guiding of behaviors, creation of subjects, and intentionality. On the contrary, it leads to a whole process of refining not only these marks, but Pedagogy as a whole. After all, the transformations of contemporary culture “...have made pedagogy update itself constantly to enter in the multiple spheres of our lives, exactly because it has been acting as an operator of discourses that try to build us” (Camozzato & Costa, 2013a, p. 23).

In this direction, Camozzato (2015) points out that one evidence of modification in the way of conceiving Pedagogy would be the concept of cultural pedagogies, originated in the Cultural Studies. A concept that “...has been useful to expand, multiply, and complexify the understanding on pedagogy as well as explore the pedagogical qualities of social life” (Andrade, 2016, p. 15). After all, cultural pedagogies are “acting pedagogies in a multiplicity of spaces, beyond those delimitated by schools or schooling territories” (Andrade & Costa, 2017, p. 5).

Therefore, it is possible to affirmatively answer the questions made in the epigraphy of this section. Yes, we can say that “contrary to a commonality, we now have many places and names from which pedagogy could work and operate” (Camozzato, 2014, p.574). Furthermore, it is possible to think that this is “a condition of current pedagogies, of the pedagogies we enact in this precise moment” (Camozzato, 2014, p. 574). One of those would be the pedagogy enacted by the NPCSOs.

The pedagogy enacted by NPCSOs

Using the aforementioned theoretical discussions, in this section we explain the peculiarities of the pedagogy enacted by the NPCSOs. To do so, we use as a reference five important questions: “Who implements this pedagogy?”, “How is this pedagogy implemented?”, “What pedagogy are we talking about?”, “How does the pedagogy work?”, and “What types of learning does the analyzed pedagogy intends to implement?”¹⁶.

Who implements this pedagogy?

We analyzed 10 NPCSOs that want to act in the area of teacher training. When researching them it was possible to show who was implementing the analyzed pedagogy. What are these organizations? When were they created? By who? With what goals? How do they act? When we analyzed the selected documents to find answers to those questions, we have identified that, despite their differences, these organizations have similar ways of acting, as well as sharing significant positions related to neoliberal precepts¹⁷. Among them a) the enthronement of companies as a model institution (Sibilia, 2012); b) special attention to public educational systems; c) interest on building protagonist subjects (Silva, 2016); d) a concern to establish replicable models; e) the accountability of everyone and each one with educational issues (Traversini, 2003) and; f) the focus on innovation (López-Ruiz, 2007).

Besides this, these organizations also have well-known businesspeople and/or big companies among their founders and/or partners. The situation would hardly be different as, in the neoliberal logic, aiming economic growth, there is an investment on human capital development or, in other words, in education. After all, it is assumed that subjects’ competences and abilities would be understood as an exchange value, that is, as capital (Foucault 2008b). It is worth mentioning that, in this logic, education has a considerable importance as “...it works as an investment whose accumulation would allow not only an increase on the productivity of the individual-worker, but also the increasing maximization of income through life” (Gadelha, 2009, p. 150).

This investment in education in favor of the economy is exactly what these businesses people and big companies would try to reach through these organization. And, considering that they are willing to act in teacher training, we could say that the investment done by them would be potentialized as it would reach not only teachers but many other subjects.

How is this pedagogy implemented?

To understand how the pedagogy of NPCSOs is implemented, we point out that these organizations have multiple initiatives, basically divided into five strategies: a) awards and praising of successful experiences; b) conduct and/or disseminate research; c) publication of magazines, books, and other documents; d) participation in debates on education, and; e) offer of training programs and independent courses. Based on our data we could select initiatives related to each of those strategies and, after researching, we could understand not only how the strategies worked but also the implementation of the pedagogy as a whole. But what initiatives were analyzed? From the analysis of these initiative, what was possible to infer about each of these strategies? Based on these inferences, what could we conclude on the implementation of the pedagogy analyzed?

In the case of the awards and praising of successful experiences, we investigated the awards Prêmio RBS de Educação: para entender o mundo (Fundação Maurício Sirotsky Sobrinho), Prêmio Educador Nota 10 (Fundação Victor Civita), and the Porvir (Instituto Inspirare). All of them intend to recognize “good practices” enacted by educators of public and private schools. They also have similar characteristics as the way to enroll, cash prize, a glamorous award ceremony, and the wish to turn the awarded practice into an inspiration/model.

This last attribute particularly stands out as it points out to the implementation of the awards and the formative intention of these actions. As stated by Ferreira (2015), this type of initiative is able to produce effects of truth on contemporary teachers’ work. As examples of this phenomena, the award Prêmio RBS de Educação: para entender o mundo uses the motto “Be inspiring” to invite possible candidates, the winners are also identified as “Inspiring professionals”. The award Prêmio Educador Nota 10 states that it “...makes an effort to know and evaluate the work of educators and disseminate creative and successful practices, so that they can be replicated and used as models in all regions of the country”¹⁸.

Regarding Porvir, though having different characteristics of the others as it is a type of news agency, its actions also want the highlighted practices to become inspirations/models. We can see this in the description of the initiative available on their site:

Porvir is an initiative of communication and social mobilization that maps, produces, disseminates, and shares references on educational innovations to inspire improvements in the quality of Brazilian education and incentivize the media and the society to understand and demand educational innovations¹⁹.

From the analysis of initiatives related to the strategy of awards and praising of successful initiatives, it is possible to affirm that the implementation of teacher training through this strategy takes place, especially, through shedding a light and valuing certain behaviors and practices considered to be more adequate to these professionals. Ways of being and acting that, according to the documents analyzed, should be inspirations to all teachers.

As to the conduction and/or dissemination of research, the initiatives analyzed were the works “Formação continuada de professores no Brasil: acelerando o desenvolvimento de nossos educadores” (Continuous teacher education in Brazil: accelerating the development of our educators by Instituto Ayrton Senna), “Formação de Professores no Brasil: diagnóstico, agenda de políticas e estratégias para a mudança” (Teacher education in Brazil: diagnoses, policy agenda, and strategies for change by Todos pela Educação), and “Formação continuada de professores: uma análise das modalidades e das práticas em estados e municípios brasileiros” (Continuous teacher education; an analysis on the modalities and practices in Brazilian states and cities by Fundação Victor Civita).

As was the case of the initiatives in the previous strategy, we have also identified in these research projects the concern with the dissemination of models to be followed. A striking example can be seen in the report of the study “Formação continuada de professores no Brasil: acelerando o desenvolvimento de nossos educadores”, in which two of the six chapters present “good practices”. As announced by their titles, the chapters “Inspirações que vêm de fora” (Inspirations from abroad) and “Boas práticas brasileiras” (Brazilian good practices) present good practices implemented in other countries and in Brazil. Furthermore, another example can be seen in the conclusion chapter of the report as a great part of the “good practices” presented are portrayed as “opportunities to accelerate continuous education”²⁰.

Another point we have perceived during the analysis of the research projects was the presence of representatives from different NPCSOs among the “specialists” heard. In the first study, there were participants from the Fundação Ayrton Senna itself, as well as Fundação Itaú Social, da Fundação Victor Civita, do Todos Pela Educação and Cenpec. In the second case, besides Todos pela Educação, the organizations Instituto Unibanco and Fundação SM were represented. In the third research, Fundação Victor Civita itself, together with Instituto Avisa Lá and Fundação Itaú Social were heard. This indicates a possible collaboration among the different NPCSOs acting in the educational niche. Besides this, it is interesting to highlight that, when investigating the education of these representatives, we saw that 60% of them did not graduate in degrees to education. Among them, there was an economist, two chemical engineers, an administrator, a political scientist, and a psychologist.

On the strategy of publishing magazines, books, and other documents, the initiatives analyzed were the magazine Avisa Lá (Instituto Avisa lá), the document “Educação em debate: por um salto de qualidade na Educação Básica” (Education in debate: for a quality leap in Basic Education by Todos pela Educação) and the book “Educar para a vida: Proposta Pedagógica Labor” (Educate to life: Labor Pedagogical Proposal by Labor Educacional). When analyzing them in detail, we have noticed that they also portrayed practices considered to be “of excellence” so as to be inspiration/models. A phenomenon that, among other issues, show the formative aspect of these initiatives. This was evident, for instance in the slogan of the magazine Avisa Lá: “the correct tool for the continuous education of the teachers of early education and the first years of elementary education”²¹. In the document “Educação em debate: por um salto de qualidade na Educação Básica” when highlighting the “good practices”, it stresses the intention to point pathways to empower and enact the proposals of the document (Todos pela Educação, 2013). Furthermore, another significant example of the phenomenon is shown in the site of Labor Educacional. In the advertisement The book “Educar para a vida: Proposta Pedagógica Labor” is defined in the advertisement as a “... nice pleasant reading that invites to reflection while simultaneously giving tips on how to work in the classroom using projects, taking advantage of students’ knowledge, together with teachers’ knowledge”²².

On the strategy participation in debates on education, we did not analyze documents related to the initiatives but media content. To find them, we searched online²³ using the names of the organizations analyzed, crossing with the word ”education” and the names of professionals who held managing positions in these places at the time of the research²⁴. These searches resulted in 10 articles and 12 interviews. Among the articles we have: “Como Jorge Paulo Lemamm, o homem mais rico do Brasil, pretende mudar a educação no país”²⁵(How does Jorge Paulo Lemamm, the richest man in Brazil intends to change the education in the country), “Prova Brasil 2015: Análise do portal QEdu traça retrato sombrio da educação no país”²⁶ (Prova Brasil 2015: Analysis of the portal QEd draws a dark portray of the education in the country). Among the interviews we had “O modelo de escola atual parou no século 19, diz Viviane Senna”²⁷ (The current school model stopped in the 19th century, says Viviane Senna) and “Não se pode usar currículo nacional como receitinha, diz diretora de ONG”²⁸ (“We cannot use the national curriculum as a recipe, say NGO director”).

Regarding the media content, we highlighted that, though we have focused on 10 NPCSOs, only the representatives of five of them had their opinions expressed on the documents found through our methodological procedures they were: Fundação Lemann, Instituto Inspirare, Fundação Victor Civita, Todos Pela Educação and Instituto Ayrton Senna. There is a recurrence on the institutions who are called to give their opinions, as well as their representatives. In a total of 22 news and interviews, only 9 people were heard: Viviane Senna, Priscila Fonseca da Cruz, Anna Penido, Claudio de Moura Castro, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Denis Mizne, Ernesto Martins Faria, Mozart Neves Ramos, and Alejandra Velasco, the opinions of the last three appear in only one material.

This situation referred us to an opinion article, found through our media searches, written by the journalist Helena Borges published in 2016 on the site The Intercept Brasil entitled “Conheça os bilionários convidados para ‘reformar’ a educação brasileira de acordo com a sua ideologia” (Know the billionaires invited to “renovate” Brazilian education according to their ideology). In this article, the author highlights the “deafness” of congress men/women towards the opinion of students and educators when debating High School reform. Contrariwise, it shows the interest manifested by these politicians to hear the “representatives of the billionaire presidents of educational foundations”²⁹. We mention this article because, among the seven names cited in a list presented by the journalist, there were the names of Denis Mizne, Anna Penido, and Priscila Fonseca da Cruz. From what is said and alluded by the journalist, we could infer that not only the government but also the media were interested on hearing what these people had to say about education.

Regarding the offer of training programs and independent courses, the initiatives researched were STEM Brasil (STEM Brazil - Worldfund), Multicurso Matemática (Mathematics Multicourse - Fundação Roberto Marinho), and the course Ensino Híbrido: Personalização e Tecnologia na Educação (Hybrid Education: Personalization and Technology in Education - Fundação Lemann). When analyzing these actions as well knowing other initiatives of the same type developed by NPCSOs, it was possible to notice that, differently from the other strategies that have characteristics consistent to cultural pedagogies, the offer of training programs and independent courses is implemented as a type of school pedagogy. After all, such initiatives have a significant number of practices typical of this pedagogy. For instance, the need to enroll/sign up, attendance, delimitation of study/work hours, evaluations, deadlines to hand activities, hierarchical vigilance, certification, etc. Besides this, other two situations reinforce this argument: the fact that such initiatives are often offered in virtual learning environments ³⁰ or, even in schooling establishments; they also are very clear to show that the aim of the process is teaching and learning, what normally does not take place in the so-called cultural pedagogies.

Faced by this phenomenon, we consider that the pedagogy enacted by the NPCSOs towards teacher education is implemented by strategies related to cultural and pedagogical pedagogies. Thus, what type of pedagogy would that be? In the next subsection we present our hypothesis.

What pedagogy are we talking about?

Considering that the strategy of offering training programs and independent courses is implemented, as aforementioned, through actions that have typical characteristics of school pedagogies, while the other strategies are implemented through initiatives consistent to cultural pedagogies, it is possible to affirm that NPCSOs would act in the niche of teacher training through a pedagogy we are calling ‘hybrid’. This is because it would a combination of different elements, as pointed out by one of the meanings of this word³¹, that is, the fusion of school and cultural pedagogies. Or, in other words, it would emerge from the mixture of two different collections that, when joined, would result in something different than it originally was (Canclini, 1998).

We highlight that, based on a pedagogy of such characteristics, it would be possible to potentialize the implementation of the types of learning expected by the organizations. After all, the lessons³² themselves and the discourses that are triggered to make them necessary and urgent would be present in different spaces and in multiple artifacts. A situation that would decrease the resistance towards what is taken as a pattern to be followed, as the pre-established models would be recurrently reinforced through different fronts. At the same time, it increases the predisposition of teachers to learn — one of the conditions to a meaningful learning according to Ausubel (1976) —, as the proliferation of discourses that intent to make these types of learning indispensable would be eased by teachers' mobilization to develop them.

Another characteristic that would contribute to enact such learning is the fact that this hybrid pedagogy can be implemented through actions targeting teachers’ continuing education. Though it might seem strange at first, considering that in general we consider pre-service training more powerful to establish certain ways of acting and being, we think that the option to invest in continuing education is especially strategic and connected to the context we live. Because, in “liquid times” (Bauman, 2007), the only certainty we have is that changes are permanent, offering this type of training would be a way to continuously adjust the actions offered to the demands from the changes that can arise. Furthermore, in a context in which the subjects are considered “unfinished cosmopolitans” (Popkewitz, 2008), or, in other words, “Homo discens” (Noguera-Ramírez, 2011), this could represent a possibility to constantly act in their formation/formatting. This would be harder in the case of pre-service/initial training due to its peculiarities.

Therefore, guided by Costa and Camozzato (2013a) who state that “...to prepare and to plan people’s future there needs to be more pedagogies to refine the process” (p. 28), nothing more adequate in the current context than the pedagogy we think is enacted by the NPCSOs. After all, as it is hybrid, it would not be only one more pedagogy but would also gather the power of different types of pedagogy in one. This would made it easier to prepare and plan the future discussed by the two authors. And how does this pedagogy work? We will answer this question in the following subsection.

How does (hybrid) pedagogy work?

Given the above, a question emerges: how does this hybrid pedagogy, enacted by the NPCSOs aiming teachers’ training, work? Aiming to indicate possible answers to this question, we analyzed the reports of three research projects analyzed in the strategy of “conduction and/or dissemination of research”. By doing this, we have noticed a discourse recurrence on some points: a) reinforcement on the importance of teacher training/education for the “success” of education; b) proposal of a specific method of teacher training and; c) rejection of the initiatives of teacher training that have offered. Together these discourses offer evidences of one of the characteristics of this pedagogy, i.e., the creation of its own need. A characteristic taken as a reference to explain the operation of the pedagogy as a whole due to its explanatory power to enact the cyclic processes through which, we believe, it works.

Having this characteristic as a background, the analysis of the aforementioned discourses allowed us to conclude that the reinforcement of the importance of teacher training for the “success” of education, as well as the delimitation of a deficit in the niche, accomplished by the two other discourses³³, offer the necessary conditions for this hybrid pedagogy to be implemented. Because it is through these movements that we could understand teacher training as vital for a successful education and that the way it has been implemented so far was not the most appropriated and, therefore, needs changes. A mission that such pedagogy would be willing to accomplish.

Once available the conditions for this pedagogy to act, the next step is the action in itself. How does it do it? Regarding the creation of its own need, the model of teacher training pre-established by the implementing organizations is taken as the goal to be reached. Consequently, it ratifies the same model that has contributed to create its need, closing a cycle in the process and, at the same time, restarting one, as shown by figure 1:

Figure 1
Representation of the cyclic processes enacted by the analyzed pedagogy

Besides this, we stress that the same cyclic process through which the researched pedagogy produces its own need is implemented by this pedagogy aiming to accomplish the types of learning envisioned by the organizations. However, it is a pre-establish model of teachers. A model that, such as the teacher training, is also established by different types of learning, as we will detail.

What types of learning does the analyzed (hybrid) pedagogy intends to implement?

Before presenting the types of learning themselves, we highlight that, though we have identified in the material researched lessons related to different topics such as education, school, curriculum, evaluation, teacher training, teachers’ work, and professional profile, we have opted to focus only on the professional profile. We decided to focus on the theme because it was the most recurrent one amidst the amount of material gathered after a preliminary document analysis. However, we stress that we consider all lessons key to the constitution of pre-establish model of teacher which we reckon is been taken as the starting (and end) point of the cyclic process through which this pedagogy operates to effectuate learning related to teaching.

We also clarify that not all lessons related to teachers’ professional profile were analyzed, as we have identified more than twenty lessons on the topic³⁴. When choosing the types of learning that would be approached, we searched inspiration, once more, in the theoretical-methodological Foucauldian contribution on discourse. Therefore, the criteria chosen was the recurrence of statements/lessons on the different sets of documents³⁵ researched. To be approached, the lesson needed to be present in at least four of the five documents that composed the empirical material researched.

Thus, we have identified seven recurrent statements/lessons: a) the teacher should innovate; b) the teacher should use digital technologies; c) the teacher should stimulate the development of students’ autonomy; d) the teacher should give students the opportunity to be protagonists; e) the teacher should act as a mediator; f) the teacher should see him/herself as a permanent learner, and; g) the teacher should work together with other teachers and education professionals.

When analyzing in detail each of these lessons it was possible to conclude that they are closely related to the precepts of neoliberal logic. Among these precepts, the focus on innovation (López-Ruiz, 2007), the concern to offer fun/entertainment to the students in the school (Sibilia, 2012), the investment in building flexible personalities able of self-management (Varela, 2000), valuing protagonism as a desirable characteristic (Silva, 2016), the incentive for subjects to see themselves as permanent learners (Popkewitz, 2008; Noguera-Ramírez, 2011), the wish to become “self-managers” (Foucault, 2008a).

What would be the effect of this phenomenon? When looking for possible answers to this question, we have initially concluded that it would be ability to form/format a certain model of teacher adjusted to the neoliberal demands. That would already be worrisome, not only because it would place teachers as “tools” to perpetuate a problematic rationality (to say the least) but also as it would dictate a sole way to be recognized as a good teacher.

However, when using the proposal of Peck (2003) according to whom neoliberalism is not only “out there”, but equally “within us”, plus considering the analysis of Ball (2014) in which the author tries to, among other things, show ways in which neoliberalism would operate in the words and actions “...through our language, purposes, decisions, and social relations” (p. 64), we have perceived that the aforementioned effect would be important but not as the main one, but as a starting point. Both situations instigated us to think on the fact that investing in the formation/formatting of a certain type of teacher through a pedagogy that disseminated neoliberal types of learning could be a way to make it work “within us”. In other words, when we learn something, learning is internalized by the subject, becoming part of his/her repertoire. Thus, when learning the lessons indicated by the NPCSOs, teachers would internalize them, making them part of their repertoire. And, as they are connected to neoliberal precepts, the teacher would end up also internalizing these precepts during the process.

Furthermore, considering that one of the impacts of implementing learning is a change in behavior, we could infer that, if the teacher in fact learned the lessons disseminated by this hybrid pedagogy, he/she would put it into action. And, considering what we have seen, by doing that the teacher would contribute to make students internalize some patterns of neoliberal behavior, as autonomy, protagonism, self-entrepreneurship, among others.

Final remarks

We end this article highlighting that the crossing of the theoretical-methodological tools and the materials analyzed allowed us to formulate an argumentative thesis that the changes connected to neoliberal rationality referring to the State role in the development of social policies — as is education — have allowed a certain flexibilization regarding what institutions could act as teacher trainers nowadays. Thus, different NPCSOs enter the niche of teacher education enacting a pedagogy we called hybrid as it results from a combination of the characteristics of school pedagogies and cultural pedagogies. This hybrid pedagogy, in the case analyzed in this study, produces its own need, as well as intents to enact expected learning through cyclic processes which have as a starting (and ending) point the models of teacher training and teacher pre-established by the implementing institutions

Besides this, considering the social, political, and economic context in which such pedagogy emerges, the learning disseminated by them are strongly related to the precepts of neoliberal logic. In this sense, we argue that the hybrid pedagogy on teacher training implemented by the NPCSOs would be a way to make neoliberalism work “within us”, of “building ourselves” as appointed by Ball (2014). This way would be especially strategic because by focusing on teacher training, the investment to internalize the neoliberal ideals are potentialized, as the effects of this pedagogy reach not only teachers but also their students, and, perhaps, even society as a whole.

Finally, we have to highlight that though this type of organization is considered nonprofit, it is possible to say that, when implementing such pedagogy, these institutions aim profit. They would not envision an immediate profit, as they have such label because they reinvest their gains on their objectives, but the profit can be reached through the investment in education. Therefore, we could say that these organizations would be as profitable (if not more) than the for-profit ones, as, when potentializing human, this type of investment directly impacts economic growth.

• 2
  Normalization, preparation, and Portuguese review: Luan Maitan – [e-mail]
• 3
  English version: Viviane Ramos- [e-mail]
• 4
  The research was done using Google.
• 5
  The thesis is entitled “Fazendo o neoliberalismo funcionar “dentro de nós” - um estudo sobre a atuação de organizações da sociedade civil sem fins lucrativos na forma(ta)ção docente” (KNÖPKER, 2018).
• 6
  Due to size limitations, we cannot specify the particularities of each NPCSO, we suggest reading chapter 5 of the aforementioned thesis, in which we present the sites of the organizations: Fundação Lemann (https://fundacaolemann.org.br/); Fundação Victor Civita (https://fvc.org.br/); Todos Pela Educação (https://www.todospelaeducacao.org.br/); Instituto Inspirare (http://inspirare.org.br/); Instituto Avisa Lá (https://avisala.org.br/); Labor Educacional (http://www.labor.org.br/2015/), and Worldfund (https://worldfund.org/site/br/).
• 7
  As examples of this phenomenon, we quote the interview with the president of Instituto Ayrton Senna, shown at the TV program Mais Você, the piece entitled “Indiscipline is one of the main problems in schools, says research” broadcasted in the TV program Fantástico, and the advertisements of the awards Prêmio Educador Nota 10 and Prêmio RBS de Educação:para entender o mundo, both brodcasted on open TV. The materials can be seen in the following links: https://globoplay.globo.com/v/4191126/, http://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2015/03/falta-de-acompanhamento-psicologico-e-maior-problema-na-escola-dizem-professores.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CldsdqVrVGc, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Koe6RdYFc4
• 8
  From http://educacao.estadao.com.br/blogs/paulo-saldana/especialistas-criticamausencia-do-mecem-plano-da-presidencia-para-a-educacao/
• 9
  From http://porvir.org/formacao-de-professor-boa-e-continua-pratica/
• 10
  From http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/educacao/2015/06/1643231-educacao-e-baseada-em-achismos-nao-em-ciencia-diz-viviane-senna.shtml
• 11
  We considered non-schooling institutions those whose main aim is not schooling. However, it does not mean there are not involved in people’s education.
• 12
  This search was also done using Google, crossing the descritptors “organizações da sociedade civil sem fins lucrativos” (nonprofit civil society organizations) and “formação de professores” (teacher training).
• 13
  We reinforce the suggestion of the 6^th footnote. Sites: Fundação Roberto Marinho (http://www.frm.org.br/), Instituto Ayrton Senna (http://www.institutoayrtonsenna.org.br/pt-br.html) and Fundação Maurício Sirotsky Sobrinho (http://www.fmss.org.br/).
• 14
  When the word pedagogy is capitalized we are referring to Modern Pedagogy.
• 15
  See Veiga-Neto (2004).
• 16
  In the thesis that originated this article there is a significant amount of empirical data that has helped us to formulate the arguments presented in this section. Due to the limitations of the article, it was not possible to present them all, we suggest reading the thesis to know more.
• 17
  When approaching neoliberalism in this article, we are based on the understanding proposed by Foucault (2008), especially on American neoliberalism.
• 18
  From http://porvir.org/premio-educador-nota-10-abre-inscricoes-para-19a-edicao/
• 19
  From http://porvir.org/sobre-nos/
• 20
  The Boston Consulting Group; Instituto Ayrton Senna, 2014, p. 110.
• 21
  Magazine slogan. From https://www.loja.avisala.org.br/assinaturarenovacao-da-revista-avisa-la-para-2017
• 22
  From http://www.labor.org.br/2015/publicacoes.asp
• 23
  We searched using Google in May 2017. The other methodological criteria are detailed in the thesis.
• 24
  Data collected in the site of the ten organization analyzed.
• 25
  From http://epocanegocios.globo.com/Informacao/Acao/noticia/2015/01/como-jorge-paulo-lemann-o-homem-mais-rico-do-brasil-pretende-mudar-educacao-no-pais.html
• 26
  From https://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/prova-brasil-2015-analise-do-portal-qedu-traca-retrato-sombrio-da-educacao-no-pais-21084493
• 27
  From https://educacao.uol.com.br/noticias/bbc/2015/06/05/o-modelo-de-escola-atual-parou-no-seculo-19-diz-viviane-senna.htm
• 28
  From http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/educacao/2015/09/1682781-nao-se-pode-usar-curriculo-nacional-como-receitinha-diz-diretora-de-ong.shtml
• 29
  From https://theintercept.com/2016/11/04/conheca-os-bilionarios-convidados-para-reformar-a-educacao-brasileira-de-acordo-com-sua-ideologia/
• 30
  According to Dillenburg and Teixeira (2011, p. 971), “virtual learning environments are software programs developed to manage learning through the web”. The authors state that some of these environments ”...reproduce in-person classrooms to the online environment, others aim to, beyond just reproducing existent education environments to another medium, use technology to offer learners new tools to help learning” (Dillenburg & Teixeira, 2011, p. 971). Considering this, we can say that they have a very similar proposal to the schooling institutions, maybe are even a type of update of this institutions.
• 31
  From https://dicionariodoaurelio.com/hibrido ( Brazilian Portuguese dictionary).
• 32
  We use the word lessons to refer to the precepts disseminated by the researched pedagogy.
• 33
  This process takes place through the comparison between the teacher training model disseminated by the NPCSOs through the pedagogy implemented and the ”reality” that would be represented by the trainings that have been offered to teachers.
• 34
  In the thesis, we present all the lessons related to the professional profile we identified in the empirical material, as well as lessons on other issues.
• 35
  We understand as a set of documents, the different materials analyzed on each of the strategies through which the researched pedagogy would be implemented.

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1

Responsible editor: Alexandre Filordi de Carvalho. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4510-9440

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  28 May 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  08 Dec 2018
• Accepted
  16 June 2020