Teachers facing the new upper secondary education: external relations of change and teaching work

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the perceptions of teachers from the state education network in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), in order to identify if they perceive themselves as protagonist in the process of elaboration and implementation of the educational reform of the new upper secondary education. This is a basic exploratory-descriptive research in terms of its objectives, qualitative-quantitative in terms of the approach to the problem and a case of study in terms os the procedures. The study has as its theoretical axis the post-structuralism epistemological perspective of Ball, Maguire and Braun (2016), in the social-historical perspective of Goodson`s curriculum (2019) and in critical perspective of Masschelein and Simons (2018) and Laval (2004). The data were collected in tem pilot schools of RS through the application of questionnaires and interviews with teachers and managers. The study presented is part of inter-institutional research on curricular policies for upper secondary education. The results indicate that the reform of secondary education was conceived and executed through external relations of change. In this context, teachers see themselves as spectators, recipients or even deliverers of a training package; however, they consider that they should be heard and involved in the reform processes, therefore changes in the reform occurs without a discussion about the teacher’s career and working conditions.