Docência autônoma: desafios para o exercício da autonomia docente em uma perspectiva freiriana no estado capitalista – estudo de caso em uma escola da rede municipal de Pelotas.

Abstract

Based on the assumptions of Paulo Freire’s theory, the present study which is centered on teaching autonomy, is the result of a research which presented a research proposal on the process of its establishment, as well as on the limits and possibilities for its establishment nowadays, in the capitalist state. In order to do so, starting from a reflection anchored in the researcher’s teaching experience and her academic background, an analysis of the theoretical references of autonomy was set from the modernity, the autonomy and the autonomous teaching work in Paulo Freire, approaching the challenges placed in the exercise of autonomous teaching before a historical context marked, in education, by the increase of the neoliberal logics in the field of educational policies. Understanding the circumstances and in what way elementary education teachers from public schools have faced the challenge of constructing autonomous teaching, as expressed in Freire, has become the central issue of the research. The central goal of this study was to contribute to foster the debate about autonomous teaching work for the achievement of an education as ‘practice of freedom’, towards emancipation. The case study was carried out at a city public school in the outskirts of the city of Pelotas/RS. The method based on the qualitative approach and on the dialectical historical materialistic focus, initially comprised a bibliographical study for, soon, to proceed to an empirical investigation from the techniques of open questionnaire and semi-structured interview with teachers working in Elementary Education in the city government public schools. Categories such as freedom and emancipation, awareness and reflection on the action permeated the analysis that followed and that sought – in the combination of theory and practice – to produce contributions for the effectiveness of new teaching practices that lead to the construction of a teaching autonomy of Freire perspective and, therefore, to an emancipator education. The results point out that the teachers can, despite the limits they face daily at work, envision experiences of autonomy, as expressed in Freire, corroborating the hypothesis that they seek it but that it strongly complicated by economical, political, socio-cultural determinants which hamper its development.