ATUAÇÃO DO INSTITUTO NATURA NAS REDES MUNICIPAIS DE ENSINO DA MICRORREGIÃO DE IRATI: PROJETO TRILHAS E POLÍTICAS DE FORMAÇÃO DE PROFESSORES

Abstract

This research had as main objective investigating Natura Institute’s performance focusing on activities development by Trilhas Project in Municipal Networks of Irati Microregion. Natura Institute comes from the national and international company in the field of beauty products and cosmetics, Natura. It is a non-profit organization that works together with different society sectors through three pillars: support for the public education policies implementation; priority education agendas articulation; and education and mobilization for Natura Beauty Consultants (INSTITUTO NATURA, 2022). Natura Institute, as a study object, stems from the understanding that it is a great mobilization entity within educational policies, which is connected to several partners that currently lead education and privatization actions. This is a documentary research based on sources made available by Natura Institute in reports and publications. Field research was also used through the application of online questionnaires on the Google Forms platform to Education Secretaries of Irati, Rebouças and Mallet (PR). Research problem has as focus the following question: what are the main implications for teacher education from Natura Institute performance, through Trilhas Project, in municipal networks of Irati microregion? This problematic lead to other reflections: what interests and implication are from digital platforms usage in education field? What implications are from Trilhas Project in teacher education? What is the relation established between Trilhas Project activities development and BNCC? The research is organized into three chapters. This investigation theoretical framework is focused on historical-dialectical materialism through Gramscian perspective. A political thought was found in the philosopher Antonio Gramsci, linked to a project of social transformation and of a revolutionary character, whose contributions are essential for a dense and critical analysis of society and the current Brazilian situation. Thereunto, the following categories by Gramsci were used: Expanded State, Civil and Political Society, and Hegemony. Chapter 1 seeks to analyze the Brazilian State formation and historical relationship between public and the private in the educational policies field, as an active civil society organization, to the detriment of the bourgeois class interests. Chapter 2 locates the study object in the relationship field between public and private, and presents actions developed by Natura Institute in educational field through the guiding documents that characterize its performance in the Brazilian educational context. The main concepts of Collaboration, Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility are problematized as well, pillars that support the insertion of Natura Institute in educational policies conduct. Chapter 3 seeks to carry out the analysis of the data collected about the Natura Institutes’ performance via Trilhas Project Irati Microregion, and the questioning its implications in the teachers’ continuing education in line the BNCC implementation in Brazilian scenario. Findings show that: a) public-private partnerships corroborates maintenance of the existing society, anchored in the motto of educational quality, when in reality there is an economics bias of a neoliberal nature; b) strategies and projects developed by Natura Institute do not occur in isolation, but rather supported by a global corporate project articulated in a wide sphere; c) Natura Institute, together with other private agents, imprint a new process on Brazilian education based on strategies aimed at the capitalist market, producing efficient, productive and competitive subjects; d) alignment between BNCC and Trilhas Project corroborates the strengthening of skills and abilities desired by students and teachers in classrooms throughout Basic Education, especially in the Elementary School early years, which configures Trilhas Project’s audience; and e) There are contradictions in the information between the discourse of Trilhas Project and the municipal education networks surveyed, corroborating the lack of information, or even its clarity.