Introduction

The society presented to us is a market society, a bourgeois society, a capitalist society. Capitalist because the means of production were concentrated in the form of capital. That is why the owners of the means of production are called capitalists, who form the new dominant class in place of the feudal lords, that is, landowners, who were the dominant class in the previous social form.

For ^{Lombardi (2010}), capitalism has demonstrated exhaustion, decomposition, and degeneration, and, lately, some people have entered the list of the richest in the country. And many remain on the poverty line. Public policies have favored the richest, and the working class increasingly experiences inequality, making life increasingly difficult and unfeasible for this class.

In the society we live in, structured under the capitalist mode of production, education expresses the contradictory movements that emerge from the process of struggles between classes, in addition to disputes over antagonistic projects. Thus, “[…] we understand that history does not pursue an established goal, it is a product of the action of men within certain circumstances given by the correlations of forces in the class struggle” (^{Gomes & Colares, 2012}, p. 289).

It is notorious that “[…] education is deeply embedded in the context in which it arises and develops, also experiencing and expressing the contradictory movements that emerge from the process of struggles between classes and class fractions […]” (^{Lombardi, 2010}, p. 13), in which the globalization of education aims to meet the interests of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for the training of cheap labor. The structural plan that composes the reforms and educational panoramas relegates a secondary character to education as a universal right with equal quality.

In this sense, there is a need to advance in the consolidation of the Marxist theoretical reference for educational and pedagogical theory. Pedagogical theories are criticized due to their explanatory limits and ability to demobilize, among which the knowledge society and constructivism stand out, in which knowledge acquired individually is hierarchized from transmitted knowledge.

The importance of considering historicity¹⁴ in the relationship between school and society is one of the aspects/characteristics that differentiate critical and non-critical theories of education. The critical perspective has as its basic assumption to understand the school in a way associated with the context in which it operates, aiming to train students for social transformation. They point to the dependence of education on society, in which it is not possible to understand education without taking into account its social conditions. Opposing this thought, non-critical theories understand education and society as independent, that is, they disregard historical, social, and cultural relationships and perceive education isolated from the social context (^{Saviani, 2008}).

All this challenges us to demystify what we call reality with the help of a theoretical and methodological framework. In this sense, we analyze historical-critical pedagogy and comprehensive education from the perspective of human emancipation, through a bibliographical study based on the critical view of capitalist society, grounded in dialectical historical materialism, as the aspects highlighted by the PHC¹⁵ found integral education on the perspective of human emancipation, due to the fact that its pedagogical conception is “[…] based on the critical view of capitalist society, not being reduced to a mere reformism in the pedagogical scope […] becoming an important instrument in overcoming human unilaterality” (^{Batista & Lima, 2012}, p. 1).

It is up to education, from the PHC perspective, to identify the problems posed by reality, mediate their overcoming, preserve life and build a new humanity. Therefore, it is not possible to think about education and, in particular, education from the perspective of PHC, without considering society and the existing reality. According to Saviani, historical-critical Pedagogy “[…] understands that education is dialectically related to society” (Saviani, 1999, p. 75). “Life in society presupposes education, the preparation of individuals to live this life itself” (^{Orso, 2019}, p. 316).

In the analysis of comprehensive education, we relate knowledge within a relationship of contradiction, observing class relations and mediations, we understand knowledge as units of opposites. Thus, in this text, we initially present the Historical-Critical Pedagogy, addressing school education/public school referring to PHC in defense of ‘democratic education’. In the second moment, we explain integral education and discuss aspects highlighted by Historical-Critical Pedagogy, which underlie education from the perspective of human emancipation.

Historical-critical pedagogy and public school education

Historical-Critical Pedagogy was created in the context of the struggles that were fought in Brazil during the period of the civil-military dictatorship, which led to the so-called democratic reopening. With resistance to the civil-military dictatorship, critical reproductive theories were present in the 1968 issue, threatening the existing order. This situation generated the need to discuss education also in this contradictory movement, therefore, from a dialectical logic, from historical materialism. This dynamic develops in the years 1969 and 1970, gaining more strength when, in the country from 1975 onwards, the oppositions decide to dispute power (^{Saviani, 2014}).

In education at the end of the 1970s, educators began to organize themselves through education professionals and scientific entities, which ended in the 1980s with the Brazilian Education Conferences. In this context, the discussion of alternatives in the political-pedagogical field is expanded, and the PHC is presented as a non-reproductivist critical theory idealized by Dermeval Saviani in the search for the construction of an effectively critical theory of education and the current society (capitalist and bourgeois). The PHC is based on Marxism and fights for the interests of the working class. It provides for equal rights and quality education. This movement emphasizes necessary changes in the current society.

It is a controversial approach, a counterpoint to Traditional Pedagogy and Nova Pedagogy. “It is a tribute to the dialectical conception, specifically in the version of historical materialism, having strong affinities, with regard to psychological bases, such as historical-cultural psychology or Vygotsky’s School […]” (^{Saviani, 2019}, p. 28) and was systematized in the 1980s with the publication of the book School and Democracy¹⁶. The first systematization of the PHC takes place, in this book, in the third chapter entitled School and Democracy beyond the curvature of the rod. In 1991, with the launch of the book PHC First approximations, it became a movement of collective construction with several researches that have been developing in the field of s: collective construction of PHC. In 2003, its eighth edition was expanded with the addition of two new studies, ‘The materiality of pedagogical action’ and ‘The challenges of historical-critical pedagogy’.

At PHC there is theoretical-methodological unity, articulations with the foundations of historical-cultural psychology¹⁷ and the psychological foundation seeks support in Vygotsky’s school with higher psychological functions, specifically human ones. The psychological functions (sensation, perception, attention, memory, language, thought, imagination, emotions, and feelings) are precisely those that require formalization, elaboration, and that require school intervention. “In this theoretical perspective, school teaching can be considered the appropriate instrument for the child to obtain stimuli to develop essentially human capacities, provided that this teaching is properly organized” (^{Malanchen & Anjos, 2013}, p. 126).

For ^{Saviani (2012}b) when traditional Pedagogy was replaced by the Escola Nova pedagogy, this imaginary rod¹⁸ shifted its ideas from the traditional school to the Escola Nova, with its vices and virtues. The traditional one had centrality in the teacher, in the teacher’s knowledge, hierarchically. In the Escola Nova, this rod changes to the other side and enters into the centrality of the student in the process. The content acquires a secondary character, which slides into the centrality of the method.

For ^{Saviani (2012}a), ideology is the expression of interests. In this sense, there is no disinterested knowledge. There is no neutrality. Interest is the ideological dimension. The fact that disinterested knowledge does not exist does not mean that objectivity is not possible, because there are interests that prevent knowledge of reality, but there are interests that do not prevent and still require knowledge of reality.

When the bourgeoisie emerges and develops in the struggle with the old order, it commits itself to know nature in order to exploit it. That was in their interests, not in the interests of the old order. As the bourgeoisie consolidated in power after the Paris Commune, in the years of the French Revolution, the bourgeois order imposed itself, both the old order and the novice social order. The bourgeoisie does not have its interests combined with the unveiling of objective conditions, as this is to highlight the degree of exploitation that it exercises over workers. In this sense, the proletarian ideology is the systematization of the interests of the proletarians in the theoretical field as a guide for revolutionary practice (^{Lombardi, 2010}).

Non-critical theories start from the idea that education has power over society and does not recognize its limits. They are: traditional, Nova, and technicist¹⁹. An effectively revolutionary position is neither traditional nor in the Nova, but in a theory that overcomes both, incorporating their advances and overcoming their limits.

Critical reproductivist²⁰ theories show the limits of non-criticism and end up reducing the function of the school as a mere reproduction of current social forms, of dominant conditions. These theories are based on Marxism and explain the articulation of education with the class struggle, guided by the category of contradiction.

Saviani classifies pedagogical trends into two methodological blocks for understanding reality²¹: liberal pedagogies, whose objective is to form subjects for social adaptation; and the progressive ones, which aim to form subjects for social emancipation. Despite using the same terms as democracy and emancipation, the analysis categories for each method have different meanings. In one example, to emancipate in the hegemonic liberal pedagogies can be seen as being approved in the public contest and to emancipate in the counter-hegemonic progressive pedagogies is to understand reality in its entirety.

In the field of education, the capitalist school is divided into two networks: the professional primary network and the upper secondary network, which correspond to the division of society into classes. The primary professional network is intended for the working class, and the upper secondary network is for the bourgeoisie, for the ruling classes. Educational work is the act of directly and intentionally producing in each individual the humanity that is historically and collectively produced by all (^{Saviani, 2019}).

Broad training for the world of work consists of educational processes that enable one to understand the productive nature of capitalist society and the technical mastery of its productive processes. Although many speak about training for work, most schools do not train for work, especially in today’s complex world. The capitalist system built a supplementary system to public school training, to effectively prepare this demand for entry into the labor market of subordinate functions (^{Maciel, Jacomeli, & Brasileiro, 2017}).

The Polytechnic²², from the Marxian perspective, encompasses all levels of education. The issue of work as an educational principle cannot be reduced only to work thought from the High School perspective within the perspective of technical training. It has to involve, within Marx’s perspective, training for omnilaterality. And this happens from kindergarten to higher education (^{Maciel et al., 2017}).

From the perspective of the PHC, humanized individuals are formed through the appropriation of products produced by humanity through the contents objectified in the curriculum. Thus, historically produced content must be selected and included in the school curriculum in order to really make it an instrument for the emancipation of the human being (^{Malanchen & Anjos, 2013}).

The social crisis of capitalism generates deleterious effects on education. Thus, the education crisis is a deconstruction of content. It is noteworthy that capitalism forms workers who are emptied of basic contents, such as literacy and mathematics, which are not appropriated by people. And that causes a deficit in society.

Society demands reading, and not mastering reading generates dehumanization. The role of the school is to socialize scientific knowledge, the most advanced by humanity. The school must work with content that is not accessible in everyday life, that is, with science. Thus, education needs to emphasize classic content, without being confused with traditional. The classic is what established itself as fundamental and essential (^{Malanchen & Anjos, 2013}).

The production of existence implies the development of forms and contents whose validity is established by experience, which configures a true learning process. The individual needs to appropriate the set of human objectifications, which configure the current context, formally constructed and systematically elaborated elements that also require formal and systematic acquisition processes. This is achieved through school education, which is seen in PHC as having a fundamental role in the transmission of historically constructed knowledge called classical content (^{Saviani, 2013}). Education is a political act. It means saying that “[…] education is not divorced from the characteristics of society; on the contrary, it is determined by the society in which it is inserted” (^{Saviani, 2013}, p. 26).

Since man does not have their existence guaranteed by nature, they need to act on it and transform it, adjusting it to their needs. Under these conditions, knowledge, which is characteristic of man, is not transmitted by inheritance, but by education (^{Saviani, 2019}). The role of school education is to enable individuals to access literate knowledge.

The objective of school education is to produce consciously the students’ relationship with reality. The conscious relationship of social practice takes place through the appropriation of knowledge. If education has the role of raising awareness, of making individuals consciously confront reality, this generates discomfort in the ruling class. This discomfort is evident in the efforts of the social forces of the ruling class to neutralize school education by not investing in schools and public policies, contributing to a backward public school. This is a project of the ruling classes to not form conscious human beings, through the “[…] appropriation of the totality of human productive forces, in a social process in which these forces will end up being profoundly transformed, as they are reoriented towards the elevation of human needs and potential” (^{Duarte, 2016}, p. 104).

Class society projects are present in education, but “[…] the school is not an inherently bourgeois and alienating institution, although it is undeniable that it, like other institutions, reproduces the contradictions of bourgeois society” (^{Duarte, 2016}, p. 104). But the contradiction that marks school education is that the public school is maintained by the State, and the State is controlled by the bourgeoisie, by the ruling class. Therefore, the State is an instrument for the exercise of dominant power. The State, which has a monopoly on exercising legitimate violence, will always use this violence against those who want to change the existing order.

Historical-critical Pedagogy works with educational processes, aiming at the development of omnilaterality and human emancipation. Furthermore, it aims at the potential development of multiple human capacities and the political understanding of the historical condition of the working classes under capitalism. In this sense, education is inserted into society and is determined by it, but it participates in this contradictory movement. Knowledge became, in the capitalist society, a productive force, a means of production; and, as in this society the means of production are private property, we reaffirm the difficulty that the capitalist society has in extending knowledge to everyone from the perspective of integral education.

Integral education and training

The transformations that have been taking place in the material base of capitalist society since the 1970s, currently known as the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’, ‘Informatics Revolution’, ‘Microelectronic Revolution’ or ‘Automation Revolution’, have been promoting the transfer of their own intellectual functions to machines. Thus, the very development of the “[…] productive base poses the need for the universalization of a unitary school that develops the potential of individuals to the maximum (omnilateral training) leading them to the full blossoming of their intellectual-spiritual faculties” (^{Saviani, 2018}, p. 241). But the contradiction is that the machines are the private property of the capitalists. Therefore, the enemy of the proletariat is not the machine, but its owners. Thus, the current situation continues to be one of exploitation of the workforce, of misery and exclusion, because, in the “[…] capitalist mode of production, the fundamental dominant class is the capitalist, that is, the owners of the means of production; and the fundamental dominated class is the worker, the proletarians, owners only of their workforce” (^{Saviani, 2018}, p. 244).

If, on the one hand, the current political situation in Brazil is a reflection of the general crisis of capitalism, on the other, it results from the specific history of our country, aggravated by a conjuncture of exacerbation of right-wing forces in a conservative political wave moved, within the scope of the civil society, by a kind of ‘class hatred’ and, within the scope of political society, by a correlation of forces resulting from the 2014 elections, extremely unfavorable to the forces that fight to overcome the current order towards the socialization of the means of production.

Currently, the directions of educational systems are being traced in global terms by institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which are imposing standardized assessments on all countries, with the by-product encouraging meritocracy and competition among educational institutions to position themselves in the rankings resulting from said assessments. This, in turn, reduces curricula to the minimum content defined according to market interests (^{Saviani, 2018}).

Integral education as a contemporary political agenda has legal support from the 1988 constitution. Even before, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1948, already contained this seed as a legal framework when it recognized human rights and freedom as fundamental and applied to every common citizen. Justice, equality among people, the end of discrimination, oppression, and freedom were already considered fundamental, as principles and values that govern this declaration. In the UDHR²³ it is possible to visualize integral education not only as a right but as a process for achieving the objectives expressed in the documents. From these fundamental rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the germ of comprehensive education was advocated. We can say that the 1988 Constitution (^{Brasil, 1988}) came to reinforce this comprehensive education policy. The Child and Adolescent Statute [ECA in Portuguese] (Brazil, 1990) provides, in article 53, that every child and every adolescent has the right to education.

The Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education [LDB in Portuguese] n. 9.394/96 (Brazil, 1996) also contemplates, in its 2nd article, that education aims at the full development of students. Articles 34 and 86 present Elementary Education as a commitment, progressively being offered full-time. After the LDB, the National Education Plan [PNE in Portuguese] of 2001 (^{Brasil, 2001}) includes as one of its goals the progressive expansion of the school day to at least 7 hours, in addition to encouraging the establishment of school councils. In 2014, in the new PNE, it was established that full-time education should be offered in at least 50% of public schools and attendance to 25% of Basic Education students in Brazil. The Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Enhancement of Education Professionals (FUNDEB in Portuguese) allocates resources for all stages of Basic Education and for the promotion of integral education. The Mais Educação program is an induction of a comprehensive education policy governed by MEC Ordinance n. 1.144/2016 (^{Brasil, 2016}) and governed by the FNDE Resolution n. 17/2017 (^{Brasil, 2017}). “The theme of integral education remains in the spotlight in the field of contemporary scientific production in Brazil, as well as in the official discourses and public policies of the country” (^{Soares & Colares, 2020}, p. 2).

Legal frameworks advocated integral education movements in the country, mainly from 2000 onwards. However, the first experience of integral education took place in the 1950s. The experience of Escola Parque built by Anísio Teixeira was an experience with a school with 2 buildings: one for activities in classes and the other for cultural and artistic activities, and sports. In the 1980s and 1990s, with the CIEPS²⁴, Darcy Ribeiro presents an educational proposal that aims to expand school time and promote educational learning, contribute to the full formation of the subject, as well as alleviate social inequalities. In 2003, the Unified Educational Centers (CEUS in Portuguese), in addition to the structure, presented a pedagogical proposal and school organization. The Integrated Public School (EPI in Portuguese), in 2003, aimed to work on the issue of curricular integration, with the incorporation of other disciplines into the curriculum without working shifts and non-shifts, and went through the terminality process in 2019. The Mais Educação Program was an action that aimed to foster comprehensive education and emerged through an agreement signed by several ministries (sports, science, technology, environment) so that they could create enrollments and stay in school longer (^{Maciel, Silva, & Frutuoso, 2019}).

Integral education policies currently in Brazil have been supported by the PNE. However, “[…] there is still a huge gap between what is proposed as integral education and its implementation in practice […] between what was planned for integral education and what is concrete in this educational segment” (^{Frutuoso & Maciel, 2016}, p. 155).

Based on the precepts of ^{Marx and Engels (2011}), ^{Frutuoso and Maciel (2016}) conceive integral education as the educational model that aims to develop the individual in its fullness, understanding full development as the use of cognitive and physical abilities and of the technological basis. Therefore, “[…] this education model seeks to expand human potential and skills” (^{Frutuoso & Maciel, 2016}, p. 156). Integral education presupposes articulating disciplines, knowledge, spaces, and relationships between subjects in formation and subjects who form (^{Frutuoso & Maciel, 2016}).

The integral education proposals developed by the educational policies implemented in the educational system are presented as a full-time school, and, thus, an alternative that extends the chronological time and hours of service. However, as they offer more time, they need to think and organize activities as educational opportunities. It is important that one organizes and plans what one is going to do, carrying out curriculum redesign, as one needs to rethink the curriculum of this extended school.

The dismantling due to the neoliberal policies expresses the bourgeois conception of integral education, as it becomes the confinement of students to 7 hours at school, making it a recovery and reinforcement activity, seen as a possibility of acquiring financial resources for the school. This is the premise of the new Mais Educação program created by MEC Ordinance n. 1.144/2016 (^{Brasil, 2016}) and governed by FNDE Resolution n. 17/2017 (^{Brasil, 2017}). It is a strategy of the Ministry of Education that aims to improve learning in Portuguese and Mathematics in Elementary Schools, by expanding the school day of children and adolescents, optimizing the time students stay in school.

Justified by the increase in time and more resources for the school, the comprehensive education offered is extended-time education, without concern for comprehensive training. The contradiction is that the guarantee of being more time in the school space does not guarantee the integral formation of the subject. It can guarantee security, food, and diversified activities, but if it is not integrated into the school curriculum, full-time education does not happen. Confinement for more hours of children occurs within a school space.

In the reality of full-time education, even though the school is fragmented into shifts and after-shifts, there are comprehensive projects that move towards integration. Even without finding the ideal integrality, it has elements of integrality. Thus, we can say that integral education policies sometimes advance and sometimes retract. The neoliberal discourse of privatization, based on the discourse of outsourcing, evidenced in educational policies, places the financing of education on the agenda, as it is a fundamental aspect to obtain funds to maintain integral education projects.

The legal frameworks advocated the democratization of access and universalization and, thus, boosted and sustained the programs and experiences. How to achieve integral education with budget cuts restricting the possibility of doing education? Despite the great challenges, the programs constitute a contemporary agenda and require that the new curriculum configuration has support and public funding. The evidenced contradiction is the speech on the promotion of integral education and the cuts of public resources through the Constitutional Amendment [EC in Portuguese] n. 59/2009 (^{Brasil, 2009}).

Elements that involve the question of the founding categories of integral education are school time and space and educational time and spaces. Integral education generally relates to full-time and is integrated into the various elements of the curriculum. Times and spaces are redesigned, as they cannot be the same as they were. By extending time, it is necessary to tinker with space. Time and space are not dissociated. It is not possible to offer other educational offers, other training activities that enhance other learning (dance, music, arts) only in four hours. This organization of this time and space brings a new texture to the design of the school’s curriculum. One can also utilize other spaces. ^{Arroyo (1988}) states that if we offer more schools in the same logic that is historically offered in the schooling process, we will be losing the political meaning of these programs that aim to promote integral education for the popular classes.

It is necessary to invest in the relationships that are established in that time and to qualify these spaces. The organization must be intentional with an educational objective, thinking about the teaching-learning process.

Historical-critical Pedagogy understands the concept of ‘integral education’ as one that provides each subject with the necessary elements for the formation of a second nature. This second nature is constituted by ideas, concepts, values, knowledge, attitudes, etc. That is, the set of elements of second nature is what will form humanity itself. As ^{Marx (1863}) presented in the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts, they are contents that enable, in this way, the integral development of all human senses and omnilateral human formation. The PHC seeks to consider human development in its entirety. Not only does it aim to fully constitute the human being in their various aspects, but it also understands that these various elements are integrated into a totality.

In addition, it is understood that integral education, from the perspective of Historical-Critical Pedagogy, is committed to the relationship of the real movement and social transformations, in order to break with social inequalities. These social inequalities, in reality, are a reflection of the determination of material conditions that, in turn, condition human existence. Therefore, it is understood that only an integral education that manages to disalienate the subjects, as well as instrumentalize them, can provide the student with conditions for intervention in their concrete reality.

From the methodological theoretical foundation of PHC, which is in ^{Marx (1857}), in the Method of political economy, knowledge is a process of reproduction in the plan of thought of reality. The problem is that the first contact that man has with reality is syncretic, what they call a chaotic whole, that is, they see reality from the immediate impressions, sensitive impressions, so they need to go beyond that level to learn the relationships and the way society is structured. This movement occurs through the mediation of analysis. One passes from the chaotic whole to the concrete through the mediation of the abstract, from the empirical to the concrete through the mediation of the abstract, and from synchrosis to synthesis through the mediation of analysis. Once having learned these simple, abstract elements, Marx says they have to go the other way and return to reality understood now no longer as a chaotic whole, but as a rich totality of determinations and relationships. This is how one gets to the concrete. If I get to the concrete through the mediation of analysis, then I have to go through the analytical moment (^{Saviani, 2018}).

The disciplines enter into the formation of the curricular process as this analytical moment, in which these various aspects are taken into account in order to understand reality in its entirety. The pedagogical problem is exactly how to articulate all these elements, because the fragmentary vision is part of the formal logic that is the dominant logic, and the curricula are organized in the form of juxtaposition. The PHC criticizes this movement and seeks to reorganize the curricula and the way of working with curricular contents in order to overcome this fragmentation and allow the apprehension of the totality in its movement.

In the last chapter of the book PHC 30 years (^{Marsiglia, 2011}), Saviani underlines the difference between periphery and elite schools, in which it was possible to verify that the role of education is not to reiterate what is apparent, but to show what is hidden. In this sense, we find the first contradiction between Saviani and Dewey, who value immediate experience. Thus, the center of training, according to the PHC, is systematized and historically constructed knowledge and this knowledge is not immediately available.

In order to demonstrate an integral education effectively, it is indicative to consider the assumptions: full-time education is not integral education, and popular integral education modalities are not integral bourgeois education. Time refers to the number of hours spent at school, with part-time (one shift), and semi-full time (a shift that extrapolates one, two, or three hours). The PNE talks about a full-time period of at least 7 hours, that is, if we assume that the class starts at 7 am and that there are 2 hours for lunch, how many hours of effective class time would there be? In the form of the law, it does not happen full-time, when in fact it happens part-time; in the full-time modality, the student should sleep at school.

Integral education modalities were implemented in Brazil and received several names: extended day, diversified activities, confessional integral education, and lay integral education. Popular integral education modalities are not bourgeois integral education. In this condition are the extended days, the diversified activities, the integral confessional education, and the integral polytechnic education (^{Frutuoso & Maciel, 2016}; ^{Maciel, 2018}).

In Brazil, when talking about the application of work as an educational principle, it is usually linked to professional education or technological education, or high school. Strictly speaking, its locus par excellence was found in high school. Work as an educational principle cannot be reduced to an area or a stage of school education. In a broad sense, it points to a lifelong training process and not to an area or a stage of school education.

Therefore, there is no pedagogical principle that, based on the Marxist conception of education, contemplates the complete school process and its multiple dimensions of the human dimension. It is necessary to seek a principle that can be worked from kindergarten to university; that can work all human faculties (not only the cognitive but the multiple human dimensions in the condition of emancipation). Thus, Polytechnic is the pedagogical principle that is based on the conception that man is a historical-cultural being, constituted from their social praxis (in which work is the determining foundation and the conscience of its most finished expression), whose consequence is the potential development of multiple cognitive, sensitive, physical and social capacities that determine their integral humanization (^{Frutuoso & Maciel, 2016}; ^{Maciel, 2018}).

Critical historical formation for an effectively transforming participation consists of educational processes, which make it possible to understand the class nature of capitalist society and the nature of the state that legitimizes it.

Integral education and emancipation

When talking about integral education from an emancipatory perspective, we need to think about emancipation from a Marxist perspective. To think that humanity is no longer divided into classes, where a certain class exploits another and the work of most people is exploited by the minority. So emancipation means not only an individual condition but a collective condition of changing the form of work, from salaried work to associated work.

In the text ‘Critical Notes on the Article: “The King of Prussia and Social Reform”’, ^{Marx (1844}) presents the difference between human emancipation and political emancipation. For this, he speaks about the social revolution and the political revolution. He places the difference between these terms so that we do not end up with a bourgeois and limited understanding of emancipation and, consequently, what revolution is.

When dealing with the difference between political revolution and social revolution, we have that political revolution is that of bourgeois society, that is, it is the maintenance of the bourgeois State and all its contradictions. The social revolution represents the overcoming of bourgeois society, political emancipation, and its contradictions. The social revolution is the pursuit of building a communist society, that is, it is emancipated humanity. This initial explanation serves to understand that there is a difference between human emancipation and political emancipation, between political revolution and social revolution²⁵.

When political and human emancipation is not achieved, it remains trapped in alienation²⁶ of the society that divides work, and ends up distorting the formation of knowledge based on its dominant ideology.

The first alienation is due to the social division of labor, as the worker does not see himself in what they have produced, nor can they acquire what they produce. This is presented as the “[…] worker’s relationship with their own activity as an alien activity, which does not provide them with satisfaction in and of itself, but only through the act of selling it to another” (^{Mészáros, 2016}, p. 20).

The dominant ideology enforces this in different ways. Analyzing the educational reforms in the country, one of the forms of alienation in the school environment is the pedagogical fad. Innovative, modern pedagogical theories active in educational policies, which end up reproducing in school not the elevation of the individual’s knowledge, but its maintenance at the same level, by working elements and concepts of everyday life, not exploring beyond it. This means that individuals do not improve training and are unable to articulate training to understand the element that is beyond reality. “But the reproduction of alienation is a contradictory and, therefore, dialectical process, containing both the forces that maintain it and the forces that can generate its overcoming” (^{Duarte, 2016}, p. 106).

^{Duarte (2016}) names these pedagogies as pedagogies of learning to learn (reflective teacher pedagogy, competencies, project, constructivism, escolanovismo). They focus on know-how, in pragmatic and quotidian, utilitarian concepts. The focus is to make the individual solve their problems and be entrepreneurial, flexible, active, and responsible for their formation. It is not the State that has to organize quality training and more adequate policies for the population. The responsibility rests with the individual.

This has been introduced in teacher education, both initial and continuing education, as well as in the legislation that resulted in the LDB, which has traces of education treated as a commodity, opening space for the private sector to act. And today we have the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC in Portuguese) in which the emphasis is on competencies and on the reform of Secondary Education, which is the precariousness of training for the working class.

The Polish philosopher ^{Suchodolski (1966}) points out that education within the scope of bourgeois society can play a dual role, according to the conception of those responsible for training. Thus, one should not be naive in thinking that the bourgeoisie will formulate policies that meet the interests of the working class. It is not in the interests of the bourgeoisie to provide emancipatory training. The public state school is driven by bourgeois policies.

For ^{Mészáros (2008}), education can play two roles: to be a weapon and instrument of adaptation to current relations or to be a weapon and instrument of its transformation. Thus, based on the works of Marx, said author defends the revolutionary movement of overcoming and transforming the current state of affairs, of the social framework, of radical transformation, which is why “[…] it is necessary to break with the logic of capital […]” (Mészáros, 2008, p. 27), going to the root of the problem of private society, which needs to be overcome to overcome capitalism. In this sense, education professionals can carry out a policy of resistance and confrontation from a counter-hegemonic perspective, making educational work an instrument of struggle.

According to ^{Mészáros (2008}), education is not alone responsible for the formation of revolutionary thought and for organizing a social revolution, but it has a fundamental role in the theoretical formation. It should lead the individual to dominate society, the type of knowledge produced so far, the type of social organization, how it was built and how it can be overcome, thus moving towards the PHC to the great role and responsibility of the school, which is the work with depth of knowledge of science, art, history.

The social role of education in the actual, broader process of social transformation and revolution is to form revolutionary consciousness. The consciousness that through its action (praxis) is capable of transforming the world around it. In this sense, education acquires a moral political orientation, that is, it must act in the construction of the revolutionary working class. Our society did not have its genesis in capitalism, it was not born divided into classes. It was historically built.

The key point between PHC and comprehensive education is to enable individuals to have access to knowledge produced by society. Thus, if the formation of the revolutionary class is the goal of education, a new education will emerge: an education aimed at the full formation of the individual, an education that will have the tendency to directly and intentionally produce the development of human, intellectual, affective and moral capacities. towards what is most developed by human history in terms of cultural, material, and symbolic production.

The PHC based on dialectical historical materialism conceives the curriculum as the result of a collective struggle. It is not just a technical document, but it takes individuals from the selected contents to understand the world. At PHC, the curriculum is the intentional selection of a portion of the cultural heritage historically produced by humanity. For ^{Martins (2013}), human beings only fully develop their functions and skills when they have access to what is the richest produced in our society in the form of material and intellectual culture.

The appropriation of human cultural heritage by the working class is necessary for the domination of what was produced to organize the transformation movement, knowing what exists, and what needs to be changed, maintained, and destroyed. According to ^{Malanchen (2016}), the specific content of each discipline and the human and political formation, as well as the conception of society, man, and human development resulting from the process of appropriation of non-material wealth must be worked together and dialectically of universal value for the emancipation of the human being, knowledge and criticism of the social relations that involve the capitalist mode of production, which is the root of Marxism.

We can, therefore, say that knowledge does not belong to the elite, but is collectively constructed, therefore, it is important that we can master historically constructed knowledge, which until then only the ruling class has access to. Knowledge belongs to everyone, but it is necessary to see how to disseminate teaching, with techniques, methods, teaching theory, and pedagogy as a science.

^{Saviani (2018}) understands that a school that denies/resists changes does not keep up with social and historical changes. “At each historical stage, it is the role of education to make each man current to their time by appropriating the essential elements accumulated historically. Without this, the individual of the human species does not become a man” (^{Saviani, 2018}, p. 239).

PHC is a theory that thinks from the point of view of the working class, excluded, and alienated by the mode of production and the profit of capital. Combating this dominant, hegemonic model is a necessity in the struggle for life, for mankind, and for the environment.

^{Saviani (2008}) shows that Marx was not only concerned with theory, but that one of his concerns was that all children had access to education. For Marx, history is what determines consciousness, therefore, consciousness determines history at the same time, and the individual transforms the world and the world transforms them.

According to ^{Saviani (2019}), knowledge is meaningless if produced for itself, and the reproduction of knowledge must serve the dignity of people and not just a limited group.

Education in the dialectic consists of syncresis and synthesis, passing through the chaotic vision of the whole, in abstractions and simpler determinations, the scientific method and the teaching method. In short, the student must have access to the knowledge produced by society, produce new knowledge and understand the political mechanisms behind this knowledge.

For PHC, there is no such thing as capitalist knowledge. The problem is not scientific knowledge, but the way to work this knowledge articulated to social practice. The issue is that a class holds the knowledge and does not share it with the other classes. The maxim that summarizes the conception of pedagogical work of this tendency/pedagogical conception is “[…] the dominated do not free themselves if they do not come to dominate what the dominant ones dominate. So dominating what the dominant dominate is a condition of liberation” (^{Saviani, 2007}, p. 55).

For PHC, the need, the quest to dominate what the dominant dominate is the knowledge systematically elaborated by humanity in the most advanced distributed, disseminated to all people of different classes, that enables the emancipation of the subject and access to democracy in full. This democracy is access to classical knowledge, systematized knowledge produced by humanity. “It is still necessary to highlight that, even within this process of producing these contents, these are limited to certain subjective and objective aspects” (^{Ferreira & Duarte, 2021}, p. 6). This knowledge is capable of emancipating the subject. For PHC, emancipation comes from understanding the most advanced knowledge produced by humanity, which in our culture is configured as science, whether literate, human, or exact, science in all areas of knowledge, but not science by itself, but science articulated to the subject's social practice.

Ultimately, what sets integral education apart from the historical-critical perspective is a didactic-pedagogical process that aims at the development of multiple human faculties (omnilaterality, humanization) in search of emancipation.

Final considerations

In general, from the historical-critical Pedagogy, we tried to demonstrate that only a pedagogy historically founded on the understanding of the specificity of the school and on the relevance of the work of such an institution will be possible through cultural, human, and emancipatory development.

In this sense, the school is seen as fundamental for this development and can contribute to overcoming the current order, which maintains social inequalities. The school seeks, in this way, a socialist society in the direction of a classless society.

We infer that Integral Education goes far beyond a curriculum redesign, but requires a cultural change in the sense of unifying teaching method and methodology in order to expand the student’s ability to understand their mediations, determinations, and historical possibilities and thus promote an omnilateral education, able to offer the necessary conditions for the promotion of social emancipation, aims at the potential development of multiple human capacities and the political understanding of the historical condition of the working classes, under capitalism. In this sense, education is inserted into society and is determined by it, but it participates in this contradictory movement. Knowledge became, in a capitalist society, a productive force, a means of production; and, as in this society the means of production are private property, we reaffirm the difficulty that capitalist society has in extending knowledge to everyone in the perspective of comprehensive education, considering the need for investments in structural issues of the school, which, contradictorily, has been left sidelined by the educational reforms implemented

Only an integral education committed to the movement of real transformations can break with the current social inequalities. These social inequalities are actually a reflection of the determination of material conditions that, in turn, condition human existence.

Therefore, it is understood that only an integral education manages to disalienate the subjects, as well as instrumentalize them. It can provide students with conditions for critical intervention in their concrete reality. Systematized knowledge is an instrument of struggle.

For the school to be able to fulfill its function and socialize the knowledge historically systematized by the human race, it becomes imperative to have a school planning of integral education beyond the current one. In this sense, integral education must be guided by the provision of teaching that provides the student with the necessary conditions for human development.

It is clear, however, that although progress has been made, pedagogically and organizationally, the integral education school is still below the real needs of the demands to which it is intended. In addition to thinking about the school within the welfare bias, we cannot fail to consider that any project articulated to the PHC must take into account the reality of the place that will be carried out and that the issue of political discontinuity compromises the effectiveness of integral education.

Integral education should take the form of integral training at all levels of education as a sequenced training process, in which time should be an organizing and planning factor based on expanding training, considering the need for investments in structural issues of school that, contradictorily, has been left aside by the implemented educational reforms. These favor the dismantling of education as an effective right for the integral formation of the individual. Education must be compatible with the needs of the working classes, who need a type of education that can overcome the education that today aims to prepare people for the job market.