The article discusses the political and ethical principles of popular education in the educational process of middle-level health care workers. It is based on the theoretical and conceptual framework of institutional analysis; thus the formation process is considered to be the instituted moment, the Ministry of Health policy for the formation of workers is instituing and popular education in health care is the institutionalization process. The dialectics between the instituted, instituing and the institutionalization process determine different possibilities, in which popular education is a component of autonomy for the professionals, deconstructing pedagogical processes, and linking subjecting agents to the rational and organizational logic of health care services. It is also a strategy for building up ways of escape that may lead to changes in the formation process of these workers.
popular education; professional formation for health care workers; institutional analysis