Introduction

Initially, it is important to admit that the expansion of the debate and scientific production about the themes “social insertion” and “internationalization” is due to the fact that these are indicators adopted by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) [Coordination for the Improvement of Higher-Level Personnel] for the evaluation of Brazilian graduate programs in all areas of knowledge. Despite being general indicators, the meanings attributed to them, and consequently their evaluation, are inexorably marked by the specificities of each area, which impacts on the clarity of their objectification criteria and makes their use complex for comparison purposes between different areas.

Educational Psychology is considered a subfield of both graduate studies in Education and Psychology. Thus, the analysis of the social insertion and internationalization in the field of Educational Psychology research necessarily requires the consideration of the nature of its interface and the peculiarities of its productions when linked to graduate studies in Education and Psychology. Specifically in the field of graduation studies in Education, the focus of this article, there is no consensus on the meanings attributed to these two indicators, with variations even in relation to the other areas that form the Human Sciences, mainly due to the particular relationship with the Basic Education teaching systems.

On the other hand, it is worth noting that, in the field of Educational Psychology, beyond the criteria that make up the evaluation of graduate programs, is widely recognized the need for practices and research that attest to the political, ethical and social commitment of this area with the processes of teacher formation as well as with the problematization, with a view to overcoming, the reductionisms still existing in educational spaces (^{ANTUNES; SANTOS, 2020}; ^{BASSANI, 2019}; ^{DIOGO; CHRIST, 2022}). According to ^{Diogo and Christ (2022, p. 3)}, it is urgent to reflect on the potential of Educational Psychology in contributing to forge a teaching praxis committed to human emancipation, a task that, according to these authors, is “[...] a complex and long-term process, which begins in the initial formation and continues throughout the teacher’s professional career”.

Also for ^{Antunes and Santos (2020, p. 2)}, the ethical-political commitment of the research in the area of Educational Psychology includes the defense of an emancipatory Education as well as the “[...] commitment to the public, democratic, and egalitarian school, through the diffusion and socialization of the knowledge produced by Brazilian and foreign researchers”. Additionally, it is necessary to emphasize that this academic area performs a necessary social function in a democratic society, which is, to collaborate to the production of knowledge that contributes to science and to the construction of a more just, egalitarian, and inclusive society.

From this panorama, it is essential to reflect on the commitment of research in the field of Educational Psychology with the materialization of the social function of the area, in order to meet the indicators adopted for the evaluation of graduate programs. Thus, our goal is to analyze to what extent the papers presented by Working Group 20 - Educational Psychology of Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação e Pesquisa em Educação (ANPEd) [National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Education], in the annals of national scientific meetings from 2011 to 2020, allow evidence the commitment to social insertion and internationalization in the production of knowledge in Educational Psychology in the context of graduate studies in Education. The choice for this time frame is due to the understanding that the analysis of these indicators needs to be done in line with the period of validity of the current National Graduation Plan (PNPG, 2011-2020). On the other hand, the selected publication medium is justified due to both the relevance of the ANPEd national events and the existence of a specific Working Group for the dissemination of research on Educational Psychology, especially those linked to graduate programs in Education.

Although there are other means of disseminating the papers in the field, we believe that the national scientific meetings of ANPED are a privileged space to discuss how the publications of researchers linked to Educational Psychology, inserted in the Brazilian graduate programs in Education, contemplate the indicators of social insertion and internationalization.

However, before presenting the data related to the analyzed papers, it is worth discussing more carefully the indicator’s meaning of social insertion and internationalization in graduate programs in Education. To this end, the PNPG 2011-2020 will be used as a guiding document, adding conceptual and critical reflections of researchers in the area.

Social insertion and internationalization in Education graduate studies: reflections about their (im)pertinence

We agree with ^{Boufleuer’s (2009)} proposition, according to which social insertion as a criterion for graduation studies evaluation indicates the acknowledgment of social responsibility as a relevant and desirable dimension and points out that the knowledge production should contribute not only to the science development, but also to the country’s development and to the people’s living conditions. Regarding specifically graduate Education studies, due to its intrinsic relationship with Basic Education, this indicator is considered to be extremely important for the continued formation and valorization of education professionals, besides being an important tool in the search for the improvement of teaching quality in all stages, modalities, and levels. However, it is crucial that the relations between these two instances can follow a “two-way street”, with the definition of the roles of each one and the establishment of a collaboration scheme, so that both can benefit and feed off each other.

This differentiated relationship with Basic Education has repercussions, among other aspects, on “[...] what should be considered or not as social insertion within the graduation studies in education in Brazil” (^{ANPEd, 2017}). Thus, there is the need that, in addition to this intrinsic relationship, the graduate programs in Education may be committed to networks of knowledge production articulated to social demands and be able to generate political and social impacts, considering their character of formation and generating of research and knowledge production.

In this same document, the ANPEd calls attention to the need for the area to position itself in order to make explicit the conceptual references for its definition. To this end, it highlights the interrelation between knowledge, development, research, and social transformation as a pillar of graduate education studies. However, it warns about the problem in the way CAPES’ evaluation document is structured, which makes it confusing to define the activities performed that mark the effective social insertion.

As a result of the debates held at the Ist Graduation Evaluation Seminar and the actions developed by the programs aiming at their social insertion, the document suggests that this question should be composed of four dimensions: contextualization and interconnection of the program proposal with the demands; human formation; production and circulation of knowledge; and academic, administrative and political performance. This discussion is pertinent here, because the lack of clarity in measuring these dimensions may have clouded the explicitness of this indicator in the analyzed papers.

With regard to internationalization, the Brazilian graduation studies has been trying to survive in a context of financial crisis that began in 2008, with the global crisis, which worsened internally as of 2011, with frequent financial cuts in Higher Education and financial contingencies that deepened with the legal/parliamentary political coup of 2016 in Brazil. At that moment, an austerity policy was initiated that determined a fiscal reform freezing public spending for 20 years, compromising not only the graduation studies internationalization process, but also the production of knowledge and the circulation of ideas, foreseen even by the PNPG 2011-2020 (^{GOUVEIA, AZEVEDO, MENDES, 2017}).

The reduction of the Education budget compromised the goal 14 of the National Education Plan (PNE 2014-2020) that provided for an increase in enrollments in stricto sensu graduation studies and that would impact the annual formation of sixty thousand master professors and twenty-five thousand PhD professors. In addition, it would strengthen strategy 4.16, which foresees the inclusion of Education professionals in graduate studies. This new fiscal regime also led to the approval of the labor and social security reform, generating the flight of our reference researchers, which caused the paralysis of research and laboratory activities.

^{Gouveia, Azevedo, and Mendes (2017)} also alert us to the meanings in dispute about the goal of internationalization. On the one hand, an internationalization that dialogues with a social project of broader human formation and, on the other hand, a perspective based on international competition. In the field of Education, this challenge becomes even greater considering that the nature of this area, when taken from a democratic and progressive perspective, presupposes an academic project of solidary sociability.

^{Azevedo (2017)} also warns that, in the attempt to internationalize through strategies, such as mobility across borders and inter-institutional agreements, instead of creating properly international ties, we may be favoring the formation of a global Higher Education market, which has more to do with formative homogeneity, standardization of professions and disregard for local specificities (cultural, economic, political and social) and interculturality. In the case of Brazilian education, we are not only in a peripheral country, but also in a peripheral area of knowledge.

Another constant challenge to internationalization is the consumption of materials in other languages, not only by undergraduate students, but also by graduate students and professors, due to our monolingual culture. We also must overcome the difficulties of interlocution (arising from the use of Portuguese language) to broaden the conceptions and understandings about research and its objects. A major obstacle to overcome is the privilege that databases give to English language productions, making it difficult to access and disseminate papers in our Portuguese language. Thus, according to Gouveia, Azevedo and Mendes:

[...] this set of issues seems to allow situating the issue of internationalization of the graduation studies in education from four areas and problems: the consumption of scientific production, the dialogue with the world production, the dissemination of research and the cooperative/solidarity production (^{GOUVEIA, AZEVEDO; MENDES, 2017, p. 19}).

We realize, therefore, that the cooperation between researchers from different institutions for the purpose of conducting research and publishing scientific papers is a criterion considered both in the indicator “social insertion” and in the indicator “internationalization” in view of the fact that it contributes both to the production and circulation of knowledge and to the consolidation of scientific production. Thus, in the scope of this text, this criterion will be considered for the discussion of both indicators.

Methodology

The present text results from a bibliographic research, of exploratory nature, carried out in the annals of the national scientific meetings of ANPEd in the period from 2011 to 2020, considering the papers presented in the Working Group 20 - Educational Psychology. From the mentioned clippings, 60 papers were analyzed, presented in five editions of the event, which were held in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017. It should be noted that the papers presented at the 39th National Meeting, held in 2019, were not included because they were not available on the official website at the time of the research.

The publications were read and analyzed, allowing the elaboration of categories a posteriori for the evaluation of the criteria “social insertion” and “internationalization” of the production of knowledge in Educational Psychology. Thus, three general categories were elaborated for the analysis of each construct.

Regarding social insertion, the categories were: construction of knowledge production networks considering collaborative research; relationship with social demands; and explicitness of knowledge transfer potentials to other social sectors. About the definition of collaborative research, we anchor ourselves in ^{Desgagné (2007)} who conceptualizes it from three principles:

[...] 1) it supposes a process of co-construction between partners involved; 2) it simultaneously plays on two registers, knowledge production and teaching professional development; 3) it contributes to the approximation and mediation between research and school communities (^{DESGAGNÉ, 2007, p. 7}).

In the other hand, regarding internationalization, the following categories were systematized: dialogue with the world/international production; construction of knowledge production networks considering the cooperation among researchers¹; and scientific dissemination. Additionally, we analyzed issues related to regional asymmetries in the production of knowledge in Educational Psychology and academic cooperation among institutions and researchers.

Data analysis and discussion

As previously mentioned, we analyzed sixty papers presented in the Working Group 20 - Educational Psychology in the National Scientific Meetings of ANPEd in the last ten years, distributed as systematized in the following table.

The most recurrent theoretical referential among the analyzed papers was the Cultural-Historical Psychology, totalizing twenty-six papers (43.33%); next, the Social Representations Theory appears with eleven papers (18.33%); the History of Educational Psychology is present with four papers (6.66%); and the Social Cognitive Theory with three papers (5%). The theoretical references Walloon Theory, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Psychoanalysis, School of Frankfurt and Bakhtin’s Theory appear in two papers of each theme (3.33%); and Transpersonal Psychology, Analytical Psychology, Foucault’s Theory and Nobert Elias’ Theory are present in one paper of each theme (1.66%). The distribution, by theoretical referential and year of the analyzed papers, is systematized in the following table and reveals that only the referential of Cultural-Historical Psychology and the Theory of Social Representations were represented in all national scientific meetings of ANPEd in the last ten years.

Analysis of the social insertion of the Working Group 20 – Educational Psychology papers in the last ten years

Considering the construction of knowledge production networks regarding the accomplishment of collaborative researches, it is verified that, from the sixty papers analyzed, only seventeen result from explicitly collaborative investigations, which corresponds to 28.3%. In turn, from the remaining 43 papers, 25 (58.14%) have theoretical nature and 18 (41.86%) come from empirical investigations.

Our attention is drawn to the number of papers resulting from empirical research that do not mention the collaboration among researchers, the persons and the sectors participating in the research, showing that this criterion of social insertion has been little considered by researchers in the field of Educational Psychology. In order to refine the understanding about this criterion, we surveyed the theoretical references adopted in the seventeen papers resulting from explicitly collaborative investigations, noting the prevalence of productions linked to the referential of Cultural-Historical Psychology.

However, it is necessary to consider that, according to the discussions about the indicator “social insertion in graduate studies”, specifically in the area of Education, the evaluation of the social insertion of papers of theoretical nature may be compromised, since the evaluation involves both the analysis of the interface between social and educational institutions and the contribution to teacher formation and the establishment of partnerships and cooperation with sectors of society (^{ANPEd, 2017}).

Among the sixty papers analyzed, 30% are theoretical, originate from initiatives linked to academic demands without explicit interfaces with Basic Education, which do not result from collaborative research and come from individual researchers’ initiatives. Therefore, it is important to reflect on the need, or not, to expand the criteria for evaluating the social insertion of productions in the area of Education – and more broadly in the Human Sciences – due to the significant number of papers of a theoretical nature.

With regard to the relation of the sixty papers analyzed with social demands, only four (6.66%) explicitly meet detailed social demands. It is possible that this number is underestimated, but we emphasize that other papers analyzed do not mention or objectively demonstrate this relation. If there is an underestimation due to papers that are related to social demands, but that did not mention this belonging, this may be an indication that the criterion is not properly valued or understood, as we called attention in the introduction of this text. When the criteria are not clear to the researchers, they have difficulties not only in making them explicit in the description of the findings, but also in considering them in their research objectives.

Finally, with regard to the last category established in this research regarding the “social insertion” indicator, that is, the explanation of the potential for transferring knowledge to other social sectors, we found that, from sixty papers analyzed, only ten (16.66 %) clearly indicate their contributions and possible applicability to other sectors, in this case, Basic Education schools, in their majority. From ten papers mentioned, only two (20%) indicate potential applications in contexts of non-formal and informal Education.

It is also important to point out that, from these ten papers mentioned above, eight (80%) are the result of empirical research and only two (20%) are the result of non-empirical, bibliographic and documentary work. This is another fact that, as previously mentioned, leads us to reflect on the need to deepen the discussions about the indicator “social insertion” for papers of a theoretical or non-empirical nature in the field of Education, considering that these are numerous and need be evaluated according to criteria that consider their specificities.

Analysis of the internationalization of the Working Group 20 – Educational Psychology papers in the last ten years

Based on the “internationalization” indicator, data analysis indicates that the vast majority of papers dialogue with international production in the sense of making references to non-Brazilian authors. Only five (8.33%) papers do not cite foreign references, of which two discuss the influences of Educational Psychology in historical moments of Brazilian Education. One of them analyzes a national program for teacher formation, and, from these, only two result from empirical research that investigate contributions from School and Educational Psychology, respectively, in teacher formation and teacher subjectivity. It should be noted that, especially in relation to the first and to the second, the object of study is debated by national researchers because they are papers about the Brazilian reality. From this perspective, it is necessary to consider that it is the specificity of the object of study that supports the choice of authors – it is not possible to establish reductionist relations of antagonism regarding the commitment to internationalization.

From the fifty-five papers cited above that dialogue with foreign literature, forty-nine (81.66%) cite more contemporary studies, in addition to classic authors in the field of Educational Psychology such as Skinner, Piaget, Vygotsky and Wallon. Coherently with the diversity of theoretical references adopted, as indicated in table 2, the dialogue with the international production took place among authors from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, mainly the classical references in the area of Educational Psychology, with a greater frequency of papers related to the Historical-Cultural Psychology among contemporary studies.

Regarding the construction of knowledge production networks, considering the cooperation between researchers, it was found that, from sixty papers that make up the universe of this research, thirty-two (53.33%) are authored by a single researcher. From the papers involving co-authorship, twenty (71.43%) involve researchers from the same institution nationwide and only eight (28.57%) involve researchers from different institutions nationwide. It is necessary to draw attention to the fact that such data point to existing challenges regarding the construction of knowledge production networks arising from cooperation among researchers, especially researchers from different institutions, which can result in research with limited comprehensiveness as well as in reflections centered on perceptions of a primarily endogenous nature.

In addition, when crossing data between this criterion and the geographical regions of the authors’ institutions, we found a prevalence of authors linked to institutions in the Southeast Region, both in papers of individual authorship and in those involving authors from the same institution and from different institutions, as shown in the following table.

From these data, it is also possible to reflect on how the cooperative productions among researchers from different institutions are marked by regional asymmetries, since the papers classified are the result of partnerships among researchers from the Southeast, South and Midwest regions only. It is important to emphasize the absence of authors from institutions in the North Region, as well as the fact that the co-authored papers involving researchers from the Northeast Region are limited to researchers from the same institution.

With respect to the scientific dissemination criterion, it was possible to verify that thirty-three papers (53.33%) were not subsequently published in other scientific journals with the same or a similar title by the same authors, which would allow us to verify that it was the same work – even if in a more advanced stage of development. To check this data, we made searches by title of the papers and by the authors’ names in the Lattes Platform, in the page of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq. However, although these searches have been carried out with the utmost rigor, we know that sometimes these papers may have been subsequently published with different focuses, consequently with different titles, which makes it impossible to identify them for the purposes of this research.

In turn, from twenty-seven papers published in other scientific dissemination vehicles, nineteen (70.37%) were published as articles in scientific journals and eight (29. Working Group 62%) were published as book chapters. Thus, among the authors who published the papers presented in the Working Group 20 - Educational Psychology in the National Scientific Meetings of ANPEd in the last ten years, there was a priority for the divulgation in several scientific journals without the prevalence of a specific journal. This data contradicts the current discourse according to which publications in the field of Education occur mostly in books and book chapters. It is necessary to make more comprehensive studies with comparative focus to find out if this is a specific characteristic of the publications of researchers of the Working Group 20 - Educational Psychology or if it can also be verified in papers of researchers from other ANPEd’s Working Groups.

The list of journals in which these papers were published is systematized in the following table, with the respective quantity of published papers coming from the Working Group 20 - Educational Psychology in the National Scientific Meetings of ANPEd in the last ten years. It is worth noting that the average number of publications of articles in journals from each meeting varied between three (in 2012 and 2013), four (2011 and 2015) and five publications (in 2017), so there were no considerable differences between the editions of the event.

As shown in the table, we realize that nine (47.36%) papers presented in Working Group 20, that were later published as articles in scientific journals, were authored by researchers from the same institution nationwide, while six (31.57%) are individually authored and only four (21.05%) involve researchers from different institutions nationwide. In this sense, the evaluation of the internationalization indicator is compromised insofar as there are publications in journals resulting from little integration and dialogue among different national Higher Education Institutions and a certain endogeny in the productions of area.

Conclusions

If, on the one hand, “social insertion” and “internationalization” consist of evaluation indicators of graduate programs established by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) [Coordination for the Improvement of Higher-Level Personnel], on the other hand, it is necessary to recognize that it is not just about bureaucratic criteria, but rather about dimensions that must be considered inherent to the quality of production and dissemination of scientific knowledge. This is because we start from the understanding that the development of science must generate impacts in and for society.

Particularly, with regard to research in the field of Educational Psychology within the scope of graduate studies in Education, we point out that it is essential that the investigations carried out are concerned with and explain their repercussions with regard to the qualification of teaching systems, meeting the demands of the actors involved in educational processes and/or articulation with teacher formation processes. This is because we must consider their political, ethical, and social commitment to strengthening educational institutions, especially public ones, and consequently to teacher development. Only in this way will it be possible to materialize the area’s commitment to the development of the country and people’s living conditions.

Furthermore, it is essential that the processes of internationalization of research in the area are articulated with its social commitment, which requires prioritizing cooperation networks between researchers from different regions of our country, as well as from Latin American countries that share a reality similar to ours. In this sense, it becomes crucial the debate about internationalization projects committed to an academic project that includes solidary sociability, prioritizing the importance of scientific knowledge to reflect on and confront social issues and to defend life.

Thus, based on the bibliographical research carried out on the papers presented at Working Group 20 – Educational Psychology, at the National Scientific Meetings of ANPEd in the last ten years, we reflect on the existence, still accentuated, of distances between: research and formation; graduate studies and Basic Education; scientific knowledge and experience knowledge, as there is a considerable percentage of empirical research that is not collaborative and, therefore, does not seem to dialogue directly with the formation processes of teachers.

Here, it would also be appropriate to discuss access and the way of selecting works for ANPEd, as well as the configuration of the event itself in the sense of having gradually become more restrictive in relation to the number of participants. A certain endogeny can be noticed in the papers presented, both in terms of individual participation and in terms of group work. Bearing in mind that there is an active participation of researchers in the area, in the different regional meetings, it is strange that they are so absent from national meetings.

In conclusion, another point to be highlighted concerns the specificity of the role of Educational Psychology and its role in graduate programs in Education. According to the description of Working Group 20, the productions coming from researchers and research groups should privilege the discussion, in the light of different theoretical and methodological matrices, of the conceptions and practices in the field of Education in the sense of seeking alternatives for the understanding of contemporary phenomena that impact Education and highlight intervention propositions in this field (^{ANPEd, 2020}).

Therefore, we focus on the articulations between theories and practices, as well as the social, cultural, and educational impacts of this science. Thus, we reaffirm the understanding according to which “social insertion” and “internationalization” are more than evaluation indicators and are configured as needs to guarantee the pertinence and quality of the knowledge produced, mainly in the field of research in Educational Psychology within the scope of the graduate program in Education.