Infraestrutura, espaços escolares e garantia da oferta de qualidade educacional: desafios e possibilidades em um contexto de coabitação escolar

Abstract

This paper deals with the cohabitation of a state high school and a municipal school that offers early childhood and elementary education, both located in the city of São Lourenço, Minas Gerais. In the current case, the school building and it's respective spaces are shared by the municipal education network and, in this context, the state high school will be the focus of the research, since one of it's main challenges is the limited space provided for it's operation. Given this reality that prevents the provision of sufficient and adequate infrastructure and spaces, we present the hypothesis that these circumstances negatively interfere with the possibilities of the institution under study to promote quality education. In view of this situation, we will guide our research based on the questioning about the impacts of these space and infrastructure limits, caused by these schools cohabitating, so that the institution under study can offer quality education. Therefore, we emphasize that this dissertation, developed within the field of educational policies, has as it's general objective to investigate the impacts of school cohabitation so that the institution under study can offer quality education. In addition, the specific objectives are to describe the realities of the spaces provided for use by the school under study, whether for exclusive or shared use, in addition to analyzing the perspectives of the members of the school community regarding the realities of this school cohabitation, associating them with the theoretical basis related to the proposed theme, in order to finally identify the possibilities and propose actions, based on the data obtained by the research, so that the identified impacts do not affect the quality of the education being provided for the students of the institution under study. For the development of this dissertation, qualitative research was adopted as the methodology, with documentary research being carried out and questionnaires being applied to the school's employees, former employees and students. Regarding the theoretical perspective, the thematic axes related to school spaces, school infrastructure and educational quality are explored. Regarding school spaces, Santos (2008) provides us with a broader definition of this concept, while Frago and Escolano (2001) lead us to a deeper understanding within the school context. In order to define school infrastructure, we have Castro (2018) as an important reference, since this author favors the differentiation between the concepts of infrastructure and school space. Regarding the definition of educational quality, we rely on Oliveira e Araújo (2005), among others. To address the relationship between infrastructure, school spaces, and educational quality, we follow Castro (2018) again. The results of the research indicated that the position of a significant portion of the members of the school community who responded to the proposed questionnaire is in line with the theories presented, since these indicate that infrastructure and school spaces can influence educational quality. In view of this ascertainment, an Educational Action Plan was proposed aiming at the elaboration of a new agreement between the Municipal and State authorities, based on the realities faced by the school studied, so that it can offer better infrastructure and space conditions to its employees and students.