The privatization of school administration in Brazil: digital control and corporate interests

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the potential consequences of the digital platforms for the management work of regular education in public schools. The research corresponds to a year before the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2019, until 2021. Brazilian schools remained closed during 2020 and the first half of 2021, at least, in most states because of the coronavirus pandemic and, gradually, presential learning were resumed in the hybrid modality, meeting corporate and philanthro-capitalist interests. The investigation derives from documentary research in the programs of the 26 Brazilian state governments and the Federal District, digital technology companies and private organizations that influence government educational policies aiming at the adoption of their digital platforms, previously identified in another research. The argument is the introduction of private platforms in the pedagogical activities administration, expanded during the pandemic, constitutes a way for the privatization of school administration in accordance with the strategies of digital capitalism, in which identity and user access profiles become currency. In the same way, time and relationships – in this case, between teachers and students, schools, families and knowledge – are now mediated and "shaped” by a tool alienated from school routine, gradually assuming a protagonism in administration. For the analysis, the considerations were the role assumed by the applications adopted in the school routine;the time of simultaneous and non-simultaneous interaction between teacher/student;and non-simultaneous working time within the scope of teaching hours. © 2023 Grupo de Investigacion FORCE. All rights reserved.