The Construction of the Citizen School Project as an Alternative to Neoliberal Educational Policies

Abstract

This article examines the ‘Citizen School’ project implemented in Porto Alegre, Brazil as an example of how to fight against neoliberal projects. It begins by describing the broader context in which the Citizen School project was born, including the hegemonic agenda for education, first in its global aspects and then in specific instances in Brazil. The Brazilian case is understood not as a simple reproduction of a global trend in education, but as a hybrid process, with local characteristics and peculiarities. Therefore, this article examines the ways in which the global process of neoliberalism and marketization heavily influences the Brazilian educational scenario but, at the same time, it also studies the results of the encounter of this global process with the local dominant alliances and struggles for transformation. Second, it situates the Citizen School project in the context of the counter-hegemonic educational struggles in Brazil. Finally, the article also addresses how the leaders of the project were able to disarticulate some of the decentralization and autonomy proposals from its neoliberal agenda and rearticulate them in an alternative project, the Citizen School project.