“O Grande irmão está observando você”: o controle do pensamento na educação contada pelo “Projeto de Nação”

Abstract

This thesis develops the textual-discursive analysis of the “Projeto de Nação: o Brasil em 2035”, a document released in February 2022 by the Sagres, Federalista and General Villas Bôas institutes. The text presents, streaky with a prospective narrative, a series of proposals for the country, aiming, according to the author, to build a better future for the nation. Affiliated with the interpretivist paradigm, the research investigates the school education program outlined in the proposal, in order to express the discourse produced by it about basic education. To this end, textual segments of the “Projeto de Nação” were correlated with the Federal Constitution and current legislation that guarantees the right to education, in order to verify the legality of the proposals and reveal the foundations that are organized in their support. Theoretically guided by Sociodiscursive Interactionism (Bronckart, 2006; Bronckart, 2008), the study considers that the construction and reconstruction of the individual's conscious thought occur through activities, the human psyche and mediation processes, especially language processes, making language assume a central role in social relations. As a data analysis procedure, the Thematic Organization Movement (Bronckart, 2008; Bulea Bronckart, 2010) is used, through the Thematic Orientation Segments (SOT) and Thematic Treatment Segments (STT), which allow relating topics and subtopics to the theme of school education. The thematic orientation for the analysis of the “Projeto de Nação” was defined as the SOT “Basic Education Management”, which unfolds in the encapsulation of four Sub-SOTs: (1) Ideological principles; (2) Management of the school system and the school; (3) School curriculum and (4) Teacher training. The convergence of thematic segments linked to each Sub-SOT is tabulated in STTs that show how the themes are effectively addressed. In addition to the Sub-SOTs indicated, the silences regarding urgent educational themes are addressed through a reverse analysis, in which the legal framework on Brazilian education guided the reflection on their erasure. The analysis of the STTs identified in the “Nation Project” discourse seeks legitimacy in literature, through George Orwell’s classic “1984”, and in the practical knowledge arising from the researcher’s teaching experience. The research demonstrates that the “Projeto de Nação” functions as a tool in the offensive against progressive thinking in the country’s education, effectively imprisoning the educational process and its subjects within a context of subordination of Brazilian education to neoliberalism and militarization. The project transforms schools and teachers into instruments of control and obedience, undermines teacher autonomy and critical training, and captures legitimate social aspirations to maintain inequalities and authoritarian ideologies.