Qualidade e permanência: um olhar sobre o Programa Mais Cultura nas Escolas

Abstract

The present work sought to analyze the program Mais Cultura nas Escolas (More Culture in Schools), an inter-ministerial initiative implemented by Ministério da Cultura (Ministry of Culture MINC) and Ministério da Educação (Ministry of Education MEC), which aims at fostering actions that promote congruence between the pedagogical project in public schools contemplated by the government programs Mais Educação (More Education) and Ensino Médio Inovador (Innovative Middle School) and ongoing cultural and artistic experiences in local communities. The program was analyzed having in mind that it was conceived in order to contribute to the improvement of educational quality, by including the members of the impoverished population into the exercise of their right to quality basic education and into the problematization of poverty as a situation that demands equality in the proposals indicated as paths to overcome it. Considerations are presented here in with regards to inter-sectorial aspects concerning income transfer social policies. Accounts by Cultural counterparts of their experiences in Pontos de Cultura (Culture Spots) in the State of Minas Gerais and in the southern city of Porto Alegre are also contemplated. This study indicated that the assumptions underlying the Programa Mais Cultura in its specificities are in consonance with the literature mentioned herein, which aim at interfering with the reality of hegemonic and moralizing curricula that reinforce exclusion and scholastic failure for students circumscribed by poverty. Mais Cultura had at its core the intention of approaching areas that would be inseparable as to full time education and of making daily life in schools more real and lively, articulating awareness, action, knowledge and enjoyment. However, its short existence did not allow for a deeper analysis, nor its improvement, given that it was interrupted. One can nevertheless perceive the signs it would fulfill its role by tackling inequalities in the field of symbolic capital.