Educational policies and democratic administration of education in Brazil: Between managerialism and paternalism

This paper presents the results of a study that analyzes the administration of Brazilian public basic education, comparing it with the guidelines and models mentioned in educational policies. From a historical series (1995-2009), the study builds the profile of school principals and the management processes adopted in public schools, using the databases of the Brazilian Department of Education. Following, the paper uses these profiles to confront the propositions of the Brazilian educational policies for hiring and training school principals. With reference to the literature on education democratic administration, and the relationship between politics and power in the educational environment, the paper concludes showing that, despite the educational policies point to the need to establish more democratic models, still prevails in the conduct of Brazilian public schools strong marks of a new managerialism disconnected with educational preoccupations or an old patrimonialism model.