Caminhos desafiadores da gestão em escolas públicas que atendem a região do Complexo do Alemão e da Penha

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the challenges of educational management in schools of the Municipality located in areas at risk. As a hypothesis, we have developed a democratic management in those schools that can help to overcome the difficulties arising from local conflicts, marked by urban violence. As specific objectives of this study, we analyzed: (i) the concept of school management and democratic management of the managers of four school units of the Municipality of RJ located in the “Complexo do Alemão” and “Vila Cruzeiro” areas and (ii) strategies and tactics adopted by management to overcome the challenges of urban violence in four elementary schools located in those places. Thus, we drew a theoretical-methodological path: a bibliographic study on urban and school violence from the productions of Weyrauch (2011); Lucas (2011); Abramovay & Rua (2009) and Monteiro e Rocha (2016) and educational management and democratic management related to the productions of Libâneo (2012) and Hora (2007), respectively. Through documentary analysis, we analyzed the legislation pertinent to the school management of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro. To achieve the empirical part of the research, we applied interviews with the school managers chosen from the delimited criteria. As a result of this study, we present the challenges, strategies and tactics outlined by the school managers surveyed upon Certeau (1998). We find that the practice of participatory management collaborates fundamentally in circumventing, or at least solving, episodes of violence within schools, through the practice of dialogue with the actors involved. As for the strategies to contain external violence, we find that the managements have relative autonomy to draw more effective plans in that direction. We lack, in our view, institutional support to safeguard the safety of students, teachers and other members in schools in areas of urban violence. As a reflection of those absences, we find that managers do what they can “ through actions and reactions” in a scenario of insecurity in the face of urban violence in the surrounding areas of “Complexo do Alemão” and “Penha”. The product of that study consists of the construction of a thought that aims to bring to the debate the social reality of the school community around the “Complexo do Alemão” and “Penha” and how the schools studied develop their daily educational management having urban violence associated with school routine.