Currículo: política, cultura e poder (Curriculum: policy, culture, and power)

Elizabeth Macedo

View article (In Portuguese)

Abstract

Departing from the analysis of theses and dissertations in Brazilian curriculum field, this text discusses the distinction between formal and lived curriculum which grounds some of them. Its central argument is that, although the target distinction has been created so as to enlarge meaning attributed to curriculum by including the lived cultures in schools, the way this articulation tends to be done points out to remarkable political implications. Among these implications, this text emphasizes the logic of prescription and a linear conception of power. Therefore, it suggests an alternative approach: curriculum is to be dealt with as a cultural production arena, beyond distinctions between production and implementation spheres, between formal and lived, and between school culture and culture in schools. The basic assumption of this approach is curriculum as a boundary space-time, in which questions related to power should be treated from a less hierarchical and vertical perspective. Its main implication is pondering another kind of agency, so as to grasp temporary hegemonic trends, as well as to overcome the logic of prescription in the studies on curriculum politics.