Karine Roncete, Visiting Student Research, Lemann Center
Heitor Santos, PhD Student, Stanford University
Civil Society Organizations and Education Reform in Brazil
Focusing on the specific case of Brazil, in this paper we use historical document analysis to explore how cultural and political changes over time have been associated with changes in organizational engagement with education. Looking at the stated missions and programmatic initiatives of civil society organizations over time, we shed some light on the ways in which the diffusion of ideologies focused on individual empowerment, along with scientized notions of knowledge production, helped to determine how these organizations ultimately engaged in reforming education. Then, we propose an understanding of civil society organizations as both shaping and being shaped by their cultural and historical context and suggest that further contextual changes (e.g., the fragmentation of the liberal order) foreshadow, once again, a change in how civil society organizations engage with education reform in the country.
