The public, the state and the private in Brazilian educational thinking

Abstract

The article summarizes discussions amongst above all but not only progressive/marxist educators in the 1980s/1990s about the notions of public, State and the private spheres in education, with a purpose of mapping consensual and divergent views and also gaps, insufficiencies and contradictions amongst them, to provide a contribution in shaping a conception of public education. The study is based on texts, articles or book chapters of those authors and, among the various positions on the theme, we point out the following: (1) the State school is a space of conflict of private interests; (2) its bureaucracy is marked by clientelism; (3) what is important is its functioning and use, not its property; (4) the public space should not be confounded with the state space; (5) it is important to impart a popular character to the State school, under the
controle of civil society. While progressive authors indicate the existence of private features in the State school and the need to deprivatize it, authors and institutions identified with private schools, particularly during discussions of the Brazilian Constituent Assembly in 1987/1988, have claimed that private schools are public and, therefore, the right to access to public funds. The article examines the limits of a number of proposals to make State schools public, such as community participation and the social control over the State, and
outlines items of a new proposal.