Abstract

VALLE, Ione Ribeiro. Uma escola justa contra o sistema de multiplicação das desigualdades sociais. Educ. Rev. [online]. 2013, n.48, pp.289-307. ISSN 0104-4060.

The idea that education occupies a strategic place in modern life has been unanimous among sociologists since the mid-18th century when Condorcet included education in the field of citizen rights. If before this education it was solely a question for the family and sheltered from the entire debate about justice, seeing it as a right places it in everyone’s interest. Since then, it is expected that the development of school systems not only expands “human capital” and the useful skills to the economy, but makes individuals and societies better and more “civilized.” Nevertheless, despite the close relationship between education (the school) and social justice, which is effectuated by means of school meritocracy, inequalities are fractioned, multiplied and diversified in the realm of the school, the world of labor, and social hierarchies, without being able to disassemble the mechanism and the logic that they hide. It is in this framework of critical reflection that the notion of school justice is constructed. It is a concept that can represent an avatar of educational policies because it encompasses all of the dimensions of the educational systems. To understand it, it was necessary to review two principles at the base of the educational movements and projects for the democratization of education in modern societies: equality and merit. They are gaining strength and legitimacy in the reforms approved for Brazilian education in the new millennium. The first is considered one of the principles of justice that is simultaneously more evident and more complex. The second is unavoidable in the image of a just world, in which each individual would be compensated solely as a function of his merit, his efforts and their results. Our objective in this reflection is to try to learn the mechanisms of the conservative - and reproductive - school to understand in what conditions the school can become liberating - and just.

Keywords : School Justice; Social Inequalities; Democratization of Education; Equality of Opportunities; School Meritocracy.

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