This article presents some examples to support the hypothesis which claims that seems to exist a discrepancy between the general meaning attributed to education by sociological approaches and those adopted by public authorities and school organization professionals. Those authorities and professionals and the current notions in public opinion are considerably coincident: indeed, they often localize education in a central place as a social change factor, sometimes as an exclusive factor. Our argument was elaborated aiming to situate a research about educational change in Brazil, supported by Fapesp in 2004-2005. That research reported the educational reform characteristics from 1990 to 2000 and it compared them with circumscribed initiatives included under the expression of educational innovation.
education; social change