There are countless challenges in higher education. One of them, perhaps because of its obviousness, tends to go unnoticed. At this level of education, adults are formed “with” adults. In this sense, one of the legacies of Paulo Freire, which will be discussed here, is that of having inspired a decolonizing conception of adult education, translated into the idea that one learns in communion. This pedagogical principle underlies current approaches to cooperation, collective intelligence and monitoring.
Most of the articles in this issue of Revista Brasileira de Educação focus on higher education under this perspective, centered on the interpersonal relationships that are established, logically among adults, in the university environment. The texts focus on the perception of the other, raising issues related to collaborative learning, less verticalized teaching strategies, professor and intellectuals training, as well as situations of ethnic and gender discrimination linked to academic mobility programs. Current and pertinent themes that contribute directly to teacher education policies, to the quality of higher education, to internationalization programs, and to the use of new technologies in the current academic context.
The topics of collaborative learning, network interaction and more symmetrical relationships are addressed in three articles. The first one, “The perception of the other person in the virtual learning environment: social presence and its implications for Distance Education”, by Willyans Garcia Coelho and Patrícia Cabral de Azevedo Restelli Tedesco, discusses collaborative learning in Distance Education (EaD). It takes as central category the notion of social presence, understood as the ways people interact with each other in virtual learning environments (AVA).The reflections indicate that studying the level of social presence in these environments becomes fundamental to optimize the collaborative learning in EaD. The second article, “Towards a more symmetrical approach to the ZPD in teacher education”, by researchers from Brazilian, Canadian and Norwegian universities, is based on the notion of a zone of proximal development (ZPD) to study the social interactions between a novice teacher and an expert. The originality of the proposal is to theorize learning in symmetrical and non-asymmetrical terms, in which a more competent pair would mediate learning. The article shows that the roles of teacher and learner do not coincide with institutional hierarchical positions, and that learning takes place in cogenerative, dialectical, coteaching relations. The third text, “Collaborative work in red drive professional development of teachers”, by Maria José Navarro Montaño, Antonia López Martínez and Maria Elena Hernández de la Torre, presents a case study on collaborative learning among education professionals focusing on students with autism. The study was carried out with a group of eleven teachers who contrasted, among them, their strategies of educational intervention with these students. The results indicate that the collaborative work, planned and networked, offers professional security to the participants, providing them with the achievement of common objectives and more quality assurance in face of specific challenges.
The perception of the other in the university context is also a topic of relevant discussion in two articles on international academic mobility, programs created based on the ideas of a humanistic project. The articles reveal opposing views of the international mobility experience for participants in these programs. In the article “Ethnic-racial, and gender aspects concerning young African women attending university in Brazil”, Adolfo Pizzinato, Cristiano Hamann, Yasmine Mazzoni Jalmusny and Pedro de Castro Tedesco question the insertion of students from different African countries that participated in the Student Agreement Program of Graduation (PEC-G). In narrating their trajectories and their professional projects, these university students claim to have lived, in the Brazilian university that received them, experiences of racist discrimination, sexism and xenophobia that were contradictory, in the first place, with the representations they brought with them from Brazil as a racial democracy, and, secondly, with the customs of their countries of origin.
The second article, “Intercultural relations in university life: experiences of international mobility of professors and students”, by Adriana Leônidas de Oliveira and Maria Ester de Freitas, themes the experiences of adaptation of Brazilian university students and professors in mobility programs, raising challenging aspects and facilitators of socio-cultural adaptation. The linguistic barrier emerges as one of the greatest challenges and, contrary to the previous article, among the facilitating aspects, the exchanges with other students and the support of the teachers are highlighted. In general, the experiences of mobility favor the construction of an important symbolic capital, of personal, intercultural, professional and academic competences.
Although they are not the only ways to confront crises and dissent from students and professors, the concern with more attractive classes and the care with a teacher education appropriate to higher education are presented as measures that can change this situation. The article “Undergraduate course classes at a federal public university: planning, didactic strategies and student engagement”, by Eliane Ferreira de Sá and collaborators, brings an important discussion about the pedagogical strategies most cited by teachers in several areas of knowledge. The analysis reveals that expository classes predominate and that their planning, for many teachers, is more an activity oriented to the organization of content than to teaching objectives. It is concluded that student engagement is directly related to the strategies used by teachers and to the way they plan, or not, more attractive classes. A differentiated training for teaching in higher education is approached by Wagner Rodrigues Silva, in the article “Sustainable teacher education in the professional masters program”. Starting from the question: “How to train teachers for basic education?”, the author challenges a sustainable teacher education in the context of the professional master’s degree. On the one hand, this modality proposes to overcome excessively theoretical academic practices, and, on the other, the option for indisciplinarity would legitimize practical knowledge, such as scientific and academic literacy, in a work perspective shared among teachers.
Two articles discuss higher education in Brazil from the historical point of view. The first one concerns the Higher School of War in the period of the Military Dictatorship (1964-1988). The second seeks the origins of the university’s threefold mission - research, teaching and extension - between 1926 and 1988 at the Federal University of Viçosa. In the first article, “The Escola Superior de Guerra and the formation of intellectuals in the higher education field in Brazil (1964-1988)”, Jaime Valim Mansan analyzes the disputes on the symbolic plane on the social control actions practiced after 1964. The article considers the foundations of initiatives adopted by the Higher School of War (ESG), which, considered as a strategic social segment, assumes the mission of “combating subversion” through the training of intellectuals in higher education as one of its priorities. The second article, “Teaching, research and extension at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa: origin and institutional trajectory (1926-1988)”, by Maria Gontijo Castro and Daniela Alves de Alves, places, in the perspective of a historical analysis, the genesis of this tripod of the Brazilian university in the UFV. The approach adopts a dual analytical approach, making it possible to identify, on the one hand, the distinction between the functionalized meaning that guided the implementation of this trilogy in the UFV’s institutional project and, on the other hand, the social and political sense of this trilogy for Brazilian universities, from its assertion as a constitutional principle since 1988.
The concern with teacher assessment is one of the major challenges of higher education. This is the theme of the article “Construction and study of validity evidence of the Teaching Assessment Scale”, by Mônia Aparecida Silva and collaborators. The authors present the construction and validity evidence of the Teaching Assessment Scale, developed based on literature review and interviews with undergraduate students. The scale was evaluated for content validity evidence and then for construct legitimacy and reliability. The tetrachoric correlation matrix was, in turn, subjected to exploratory factorial analyzes, and the Hull method was used to decide the number of dimensions to be retained. The text explains in detail the procedures of analysis, the retained indices, the tests performed and the correlations obtained. The validity of the Hull method is verified as a procedure of analysis and reliability measures, and it is considered that the TAS can assist in the evaluation of higher education practices in Brazil.
The article entitled “The surprising success of the Finnish educational system in a global scenario of commodified education”, by Remo Moreira Brito Bastos, although does not discuss higher education, is of interest to the university because it presents an analysis of the success of an educational system at an international level. Based on authoritative sources, the article addresses the international recognition of the educational system in Finland for the success of its students in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. The factors that contribute to the consistency of these results stand out, and it is concluded that there are successful alternative educational systems that, in opposition to the global corporate standard of education, may present educational parameters for other countries.
In the section Open Space, Flávio Brayner, in the article “’Paulofreireanismo’: instituting a secular theology?”, adopts a critical position regarding certain appropriations of the legacy of Paulo Freire, starting from the following questioning: “Why are we still Freireanos?”, if we do not even suspect that the answer is no longer pedagogical? The author analyzes the broad process of institutionalization of Paulo Freire’s thinking, from the “cult of the personality of the Master to his enthronement as Patron of national education, or reference point of federal public policies”. He admits that the institutionalization of what he calls “paulofreireanismo” corresponds to the growing loss of a subversive, decolonizing reason that characterizes Paulo Freire’s thought in the direction of secular theology.
The review proposed by Flaviana das Mercês Ribeiro, in keeping with the various texts dedicated to higher education, closes this issue with a reflection on the book “Teaching profession in higher education: multiple approaches”, organized by Geovana Ferreira Melo and Silvana Malusá. Together, the ten chapters of the book present reflections on teaching in higher and technological education regarding training, knowledge, practices, teaching identity, working conditions, illness and professional development. The research points to the need for public policies that bring about changes that ensure the quality of education, based on an even more qualified and better educated workforce, capable of renewing the charm and passion for teaching.
With this issue, the RBE Editorial Board departs from this initial conversation with its readers to begin other dynamics of reading the journal and of circulation of knowledge, experiences and positions expressed in the articles. With new options in its editorial line, we expect greater speed in the socialization of texts approved for publication, favoring even more the access to the current scientific production on educational research.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
Jul-Sep 2017
