TY - JOUR
T1 - Education of the countryside at a crossroads
T2 - rural social movements and national policy reform in Brazil
AU - Tarlau, Rebecca
N1 - Funding Information:
The most far-reaching program that MEC officials implemented through the Educação do Campo office was Escola Ativa, a program designed to support teachers in multi-grade classrooms. In 2011, Escola Ativa was functioning in almost every state in Brazil, with over 1.3 million students enrolled.24 However, Escola Ativa has a very different history than the LEDOC program. The Brazilian government adapted Escola Ativa from an internationally renowned educational program first implemented in Colombia in the 1970s, Escuela Nueva. In May of 1996 – a few years before the MST’s educational initiatives began to receive national recognition as Educação do Campo – the World Bank invited a group of MEC program directors to Colombia to participate in a seminar about this program. Impressed, Brazilian officials decided to implement it in Brazil. Renamed Escola Ativa, the program was placed under the administration of the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE), the financial arm of the MEC. In 2007, the program was relocated to the Educação do Campo office, due to its similar focus on rural education (MEC 2010).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2015/11/2
Y1 - 2015/11/2
N2 - This contribution explores the strategies used by popular movements seeking to advance social reforms, and the challenges once they succeed. It analyzes how a strategic alliance between the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) transformed the Ministry of Education's official approach to rural schooling. This success illustrates the critical role of international allies, political openings, framing, coalitions and state–society alliances in national policy reforms. The paper also shows that once movements succeed in advancing social reforms, bureaucratic tendencies such as internal hierarchy, rapid expansion and ‘best practices’ – in addition to the constant threat of cooptation – can prevent their implementation.
AB - This contribution explores the strategies used by popular movements seeking to advance social reforms, and the challenges once they succeed. It analyzes how a strategic alliance between the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) transformed the Ministry of Education's official approach to rural schooling. This success illustrates the critical role of international allies, political openings, framing, coalitions and state–society alliances in national policy reforms. The paper also shows that once movements succeed in advancing social reforms, bureaucratic tendencies such as internal hierarchy, rapid expansion and ‘best practices’ – in addition to the constant threat of cooptation – can prevent their implementation.
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U2 - 10.1080/03066150.2014.990444
DO - 10.1080/03066150.2014.990444
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84943456881
VL - 42
SP - 1157
EP - 1177
JO - Journal of Peasant Studies
JF - Journal of Peasant Studies
SN - 0306-6150
IS - 6
ER -