Diego Calegari is the secretary of education of Joinville, the most populous city in the state of Santa Catarina. Before becoming secretary, he founded Politize!, one of the largest non-governmental organizations for political education in Brazil. Upon his visit to the Lemann Center in November 2024, Calegari was interviewed about his experience with political education in Brazil.
Lemann Center: Tell us how and why you founded Politize! What brought you to the topic of political education?
Calegari: I had the idea of founding Politize! after the 2013 protests in Brazil, when there was an exponential growth in interest in politics among youths. I knew that this interest coupled with preparation would lead to more effective, qualified political participation, so I decided to create a large-scale political education initiative, which did not exist in Brazil back then. In fact, Brazil and many other democratic countries still lack proper political education. So I founded Politize! to positively impact democracy in Brazil.
Lemann Center: How do you believe that political education may influence citizen behavior and encourage pro-democratic practices and values?
Calegari: I have witnessed many people whose viewpoints and behavior were transformed by education. Political education is important for the construction of a genuinely democratic society. That is why the countries that have most successfully resisted authoritarianism have very strong programs for pro-democratic education, preparing their citizens to exert citizenship. But there are challenges, including anti-democratic forces that incentivize radicalism and the support for authoritarian values. This is a challenge that I did not face when I first started Politize! but that is present now.
Lemann Center: When you picture a politically active citizen, what values and practices do they have/enact? And what is the impact on Brazilian democracy of a pro-democratic culture?
Calegari: A first key value is respect—for others and for democracy—and appreciation of plurality. A second component is knowledge and access to political information, especially now that disinformation is a rampant issue. A third value is participation in community, thinking about the common good. Not everyone will be an activist or a member of an association, but even doing small actions is important, such as obeying the law or contributing to a local cause when possible.
Creating citizens with these values strengthens democracy as a political system. Then, as democracy becomes stronger, it manages to provide for its citizens better, which in turn makes citizens more willing to participate in politics. So it is a self-perpetuating cycle.
Lemann Center: What were your main takeaways from your time working with political education?
Calegari: When I first started my journey in political education, I thought that simply providing information to people would be enough to get them to make better political decisions. However, one thing that I noticed is that a lot of what we are politically is based on our experiences—from our primary and secondary socialization—and emotions, not strictly from ‘rational thinking’ as the Enlightenment suggested. Thus, in order to strengthen a pro-democratic culture, it is not enough to make a list of reasons why democracy is a good political system. Instead, it is necessary to imbue people with an appreciation for liberty, solidarity, and participation in community.
Political leaders have always played with emotions, but technology has changed how that happens, since social media and algorithms can be used to heighten certain emotions for the sake of engagement. So a question is how to preserve democracy and the primacy of facts over fictional narratives in the era of technology.
Lemann Center: Does your interest in political education inform your work as a secretary of education in any way? If so, how?
Calegari: Yes, it does, because education is not only academic; it involves the whole development of students as human beings, including physical, cognitive, social-affective, and ethical matters. Education for citizenship and democracy is part of this whole development starting in early childhood. For example, a child who learns to live with their classmates—to respect them, to share, to talk with them—already starts to develop important civic skills. The opposite is also true: if a child learns to use violence, they will reproduce that in the future.
I try to apply this in my work as secretary. First, I think of learning as going beyond cognitive skills and the knowledge of facts. Learning incorporates knowing how to be, how to live with others, how to develop relationships, all of which leads to democratic citizenship. But there are also curricular components that can address education for democratic values directly, such as history and geography.
