Grupo de trabalho coletivo de reflexão sobre a qualidade na escola: limites e possibilidades

Abstract

This dissertation, funded by FAPESP (Process No. 24/04169-4), is linked to the project “Dimensions of Social Quality as a Catalyst for Reflection in/at School?” (Process No. 22/02996-5), developed through a collaborative research approach in a municipal public school located in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The study is grounded in the framework of collaborative research (Ibiapina, 2008), which understands knowledge production as a process constructed through the relationship between university and school, and in the concept of the social quality of education (Bertagna et al., 2020), understood as an ethical, political, and formative dimension produced within the relationships and practices of everyday school life. The aim of the study was to analyze the limits and potentialities of the processes of reflection and self-evaluation developed within a Collective Working Group (Grupo de Trabalho Coletivo – GTC) established in the school context. The methodology adopted was a collaborative approach, with data analysis guided by thematic content analysis (Bardin, 1977). The empirical corpus consists of semi-structured interviews with school professionals—both participants and non-participants in the GTC—and systematic field diary records produced throughout the group meetings and the actions carried out in the school’s daily routine. The data were organized into meaning units and interpreted in light of the research objectives, while preserving ethical principles and the researcher’s reflexivity. The results show that the GTC operated as a situated space for school reflection and self-evaluation, characterized by more horizontal relationships and by exchange among different subjects as a central element of the experience. The group dynamics fostered shifts in how teachers, administrators, and staff came to interpret their work, their relationship with the school, and especially with children. Listening to children was recognized as a legitimate reading of the school reality, broadening adults’ perspectives on everyday educational practices. Although in a limited way, the GTC also enabled initiatives to engage families, pointing to possibilities for expanding participation beyond the school’s internal space. At the same time, the analysis reveals that these processes were shaped by structural and institutional limits, such as the lack of institutional time and space for holding meetings, limited school autonomy for collective planning, heterogeneous participation among professionals, lack of awareness of the group among non-participants, and weaknesses in internal communication. These conditions restricted the expansion and institutionalization of the group’s actions, highlighting self-evaluation as a tense democratic practice marked by negotiations, conflicts, and partial advances. It is concluded that the GTC constituted a significant formative experience, albeit provisional and situated, indicating that the social quality of education is constructed in everyday school life, through relationships, possible collective practices, and spaces in which reflection, listening, and participation are effectively experienced. The results also point to the need for longer-term research capable of accompanying and supporting the consolidation of collaborative processes and their developments over time.