The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies based on the “keep learning” and “learn to learn” principles


Web site: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/  article received: 13/09/2020 
Facebook: /EPAAA  Reviews received 09/03/2021 
Twitter: @epaa_aape  Accepted: 29/04/2021 

 

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Volume 29 Number 150  November 8, 2021  ISSN 1068-2341 

 
 

The Institution of Neoliberal Rationality in Brazilian 
Educational Policies based on the “Keep Learning” and 

“Learn to Learn” Principles 
 

Audrei Rodrigo da Conceição Pizolati 
Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - UNISINOS  

Brazil 
 
Citação: Pizolati, A. R. C. (2021). The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational 
policies based on the “keep learning” and “learn to learn” principles. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 
29(150). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.6023 
 
Abstract: Considering the current neoliberal context and its implications in the field of education, 
the objective is to examine the discursive genesis of the “learn to learn” principle that privileges 
“keep learning”, pointed out by educational policies for high school. For this, based on theoretical 
and methodological bases in the studies of Educational Policies and Curriculum, a historical-
documental analysis is carried out. The materiality chosen concerns the legal frameworks that 
followed the National Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education (LDBEN, 1996). It is observed 
that the constitution of the neosubject, in a flexible, responsible and autonomous way, resides in the 
promulgation of LDBEN and is gradually supported in the educational and curricular policies that 
underlie the Common National Curriculum Base-High School. The meaning assumed by Brazilian 
education today is in line with market pr, which internalize and value assumptions such as 
entrepreneurship and self-entrepreneurship. Thus, neoliberal rationality tends to consolidate itself 
through the individuation and flexible autonomy of the formative itinerary aimed at high school. In 
this process, the institution of neosubject subjects throughout life is encouraged. 
Keywords: lifelong learning; high school; neoliberalism; educational policies 
 

 

http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/
https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.6023


The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 2 

 

La institución de la racionalidad neoliberal en las políticas educativas brasileñas basadas en 
los principios de “seguir aprendiendo” y “aprender a aprender” 
Resumen: Considerando el contexto neoliberal actual y sus implicaciones en el campo de la 
educación, el objetivo es examinar la génesis discursiva del principio “aprender a aprender” según el 
cual los privilegios “continúan aprendiendo”, señalado por las políticas educativas para la escuela 
secundaria. Para ello, con base teórica y metodológica en los estudios de Políticas Educativas y 
Currículo, se realiza un análisis histórico-documental. La materialidad elegida se refiere a los marcos 
legales posteriores a la Ley de Lineamientos y Bases de la Educación Nacional (LDBEN, 1996). Se 
observa que la constitución de la disciplina del neo-sujeto, de manera flexible, responsable y 
autónoma, reside en la promulgación de la LDBEN y es apoyada paulatinamente por las políticas 
educativas y curriculares que sustentan la Base Nacional Común Curricular–Escuela Secundaria. El 
significado que asume hoy la educación brasileña está en línea con lo que proclama el mercado, en el 
que la intención es interiorizar y fortalecer supuestos como el emprendimiento y el 
autoemprendimiento. Así, la racionalidad neoliberal tiende a consolidarse a través de la 
individualización y autonomía flexible del itinerario formativo de la escuela secundaria. En este 
proceso, la institución de neo-sujetos de aprendizaje permanente. 
Palabras clave: aprendizaje permanente; scuela secundaria; neoliberalismo; políticas educativas 
 
A instituição da racionalidade neoliberal nas políticas educacionais brasileiras a partir dos 
princípios “continuar aprendendo” e “aprender a aprender” 
Resumo: Considerando o contexto neoliberal no presente e suas implicações no campo da 
educação, objetiva-se examinar a gênese discursiva do princípio “aprender a aprender” que incide no 
“continuar aprendendo”, conforme apontam as políticas educacionais para o Ensino Médio. Para 
tanto, alicerçado teórica e metodologicamente nos estudos das Políticas Educacionais e de Currículo, 
procede-se à análise histórico-documental. A materialidade elegida concerne em marcos legais 
subsequentes à Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (LDBEN, 1996). Observa-se que a 
constituição do neossujeito aprendente, de modo flexível, responsabilizado e autônomo reside na 
promulgação da LDBEN e é referendado paulatinamente em políticas educacionais e curriculares 
que fundamentam a Base Nacional Comum Curricular-Ensino Médio. O sentido tomado pela 
educação brasileira na atualidade está em consonância com o que apregoa o mercado, no qual o 
intuito é internalizar e potencializar pressupostos como o empreendedorismo e o empresariamento 
de si. Assim, a racionalidade neoliberal tende a consolidar-se por intermédio da individuação e da 
autonomia flexibilizada do itinerário formativo pensado para o Ensino Médio. Fomenta-se, nesse 
processo, a instituição de neossujeitos aprendentes ao longo da vida. 
Palavras-chave: aprendizagem ao longo da vida; ensino médio; neoliberalismo; políticas 
educacionais 
 

Study Immersion 

This article aims to examine how neoliberal rationality systematically enters Brazilian 
pedagogical thought through educational and curricular policies designed for high school — the 
last stage of basic education. Thus, within the scope of this research, the aim is to investigate the 
institution of the neoliberal principles “keep learning” and “learning to learn” that have 
gradually figured in Brazilian curriculum policies since their first inference in 1996. This date is 
marked by the enactment of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDBEN; 
Brazil, 1996), as analyzed in the course of the study. 

The constitution and dissemination of neoliberal rationality present in laws and decrees 
impute to the young individual the “learning to learn” by effect of the principle “keep learning”. 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       3  
 

It should be noted that the concept of “learning to learn” was coined by anthropologist and 
social scientist Gregory Bateson (1973), who defines three basic ways for learning to take place: 
primary learning (protolearning), deuterolearning (internal proc ess of learning) and tertiary 
learning (consolidation of the ability to model and constitute one’s own learning). 

These learning processes, especially tertiary learning, as well as individuation and autonomy, 
juxtapose and converge with market principles. The concept of individuation refers to the method 
by which the neo-subject is able to adapt autonomously to different situations pertinent to the world 
of work. This exercise has its milestone in school, more precisely when entering high school, 
because from the flexibility of the formative itinerary, students will be able to model the contents of 
their curriculum according to their own aptitudes and interests. 

In line with the marketing aegis, it is noted that this model of socioeconomic 
management has been consolidated since the 1980s and, above all, in the 1990s. Consequently, it 
starts to govern curricular policies in Brazil. Thus, it is evident that the neoliberalization of the 
educational field is characterized by  

(…) the privatization and/or privatization of sectors of the economy that were under 
public control and the deregulation of the financial sector of the economy. These two 
major mottos marked the return of the main pillars of liberal economism at the center of 
capitalism from the 1980s onwards, especially with the reforms of Ronald Reagan in the 
United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain. Neoliberal reformism is, therefore, 
understood as the reduction and restriction of the areas of action o f the State, with a 
view to allocating the wealth produced by a given country primarily to the pleasure and 
service of the rentism of international financial capital. In developing countries, 
inflationary control and the public debt system are even more si gnificantly the pillars of 
this structure built by neoliberalism. Thus, in addition to being an economic doctrine, 
neoliberalism also becam a hegemonic ideological force at the center of global 
capitalism from the 1980s onwards and, in a way, imposed and e xported as a model for 
the peripheral regions of capitalism, such as newly redemocratized countries in South 
America and decolonized nations in Asia and Africa, In these regions, many of the 
rulers elected on social-democratic or even left-wing platforms have leaned, to some 
degree, to the pillars ofhegemonic  neoliberal doctrine. (Costa & Silva, 2019, p. 5). 
 

According to the American philosopher Michael Sandel (2021), free -market theories focused in 
the 1980s through the concept of economic freedom, which  tends to supplant social welfare 
policies under the aegis and defense of free competition. At first, it concerns companies and, 
later, it is shifted to the individual, who starts to manage himself in the same way.  

Perhaps the greatest influence on free-market liberalism in the21st century was promoted 
by Friedrich A. Hayek, an Austrian-born philosopher and economist. A source of inspiration to 
Margaret Thatcher and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism, Hayek opposed government 
efforts to reduce economic inequality, argued against progressive taxation, and saw the wel fare 
state as antagonistic to freedom (Sandel, 2021, p. 185). 

In this scenario, engendered in the 1980s and consolidated after the 1990s, manufactured 
production began to be managed in autonomous collaboration networks oriented by demands, 
which favored the ephemeral based on the assumption of innovation and the use of information 
technologies in their labor and consumption relations.  

From the 1980s and (especially) the 1990s onwards, a second-generation 
presenteeism took hold, underlying neoliberal globalization and the computer 
revolution. These two series of phenomena combine to ‘fulfill space-time’, elevating 
the logic of brevity. (Lipovetsky & Charles, 2004, p. 76) 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 4 

 

Added to this, the old social and labor relations based on Fordism no longer  reflect the current 
configuration of society, since the socioeconomic rearrangement is established with the advent of 
Toyotism (network and on-demand production) and the globalization of the production of goods. 
The demand for manufactured artifacts requires flexible labor to meet the needs of the factory. 
In this production model, inventory is reduced in order to avoid losses caused by financial crises 
and increasingly volatile market trends susceptible to the dictates  of fashion. 

In this context, it is important to note that Toyotism does not abandon the specialization 
characteristic of Fordism (serial production and storage). The training of this neoprofessional aims 
to make him flexible and multi-specialized – a specialist of himself (Brunel, 2004). With this, it is 
possible for the neo-subject to act in different sectors of the economy. By reallocating the employee, 
according to demand, productivity would supposedly be enhanced, which in the past would have 
been a deviation of function. The precariousness of work is disguised through the assumption of 
self-flexibility, something that is conceived in school from the flexible modulation of the curriculum 
for high school. 

In the face of the neoliberal paradigm that is being established, the professional gap is a 
constant reality: 

(...) Survival entails an orientation on the question of how one ca n adapt and adjust to 
the ever-changing circumstances, considering what life provokes to explore whether it 
is worthwhile to adapt to the circumstances that present themselves, or whether the 
first task is actually to try to create better circumstances. (B iesta, 2018, p. 26) 
 

It is noteworthy that “creating better circumstances” is interpreted in this research as the ability to 
reinvent oneself in the face of contingencies, in other words: to undertake oneself. From this point 
of view, the generation of employment and income guides the processes of exclusion and social 
(dis)affiliation (Castel, 2005, Paugam, 2003) of individuals who do not fit the neoliberal paradigm. 
The “failure of the self” is internalized from blaming (Courpasson, 1997) and self-responsibility 
articulated with meritocracy, since the number of people who believe in work as the main driver for 
social ascension is increasing (Sandel, 2021). Therefore, its inverse is also reflected, understanding 
that failure is the result of incompetence in life choices and management and would not correspond 
to society or the State, being something intrinsic to the individual. 

Moreover, in neoliberalism, this neo-subject is that of voluntary self-exploitation, 
because he believes that he is free when working from the perspective of a company – a micro-
enterprise of himself. Subjugated to goals and results, this enterprising subject, therefore, by 
failing to “(...) performance neoliberal society, instead of questioning society or the system, 
holds itself responsible and is ashamed of it” (Han, 2018, p. 16). 

Through autonomy, there is a shift from responsibility to accountability, which affects 
the retreat of the State and society in relation to the neo -subject who is impelled to the burden 
of his life choices. Responsibility lies with intrapersonal commitment or commitment to a cause, 
since responsibility denotes a sentence resulting from certain attitudes assumed by the individual 
– towards himself. 

Insertion in the market becomes a movement of the individual a nd no longer a 
responsibility of the Government. Students, under the aegis of entrepreneurship, end up 
impelled to take responsibility for their life choices from the moment they enter high school. In 
this formative stage, the young person is called upon to deliberate on the composition of his 
curriculum aligned with life management with a view to articulating autonomy, flexibility and 
responsibility. 

The allocation of this new learner in the world of work based on their curricular training 
is based on flexibility and self-responsibility based on what is established by the National 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       5  
 

Common Curricular Base (BNCC) for the New High School (Brazil, 2018). The security of full 
employment of the past does not exist today due to the technological changes that are 
reconfigured and manifested in the labor market, which are equally contingent. Added to this is 
the planned obsolescence of artifacts that influence labor relations, which are increasingly 
dynamic, precarious, and disposable. Thus, in the current conjuncture  imposed by neoliberalism, 
the stability of the worker is weakened due to competition among themselves and among all, which 
results in the precariousness of the individual 1. Although attractive, the flexibility of the training 
process, based on self-entrepreneurship, directly influences the “(...) deregulation of the labor 
relationship, absence of rights” (Tiddi, 2002, p. 75). From this perspective, Barbosa (2011, p. 
122) understands that nowadays, 

(...) the heterogeneity of the working class takes on much more abyssal contours than it 
did in the Fordist period. The obviousness of this situation is manifested in the 
coexistence of the employment contract for an indefinite period and various types of 
atypical employment contracts, configured by the logic of productive flexibilization; that 
is, all those contracts that do not fall under the traditional condition of Fordist wage -
earning, such as, for example, temporary work, part-time, outsourcing (subcontracting) 
and apprenticeship (trainees). In addition to informal work, which in the countries of the 
capitalist periphery, such as Brazil, has been present for a long time and has only recently 
become a hindrance for the countries of advanced capitalism. 
 

The objective of educational policies is to make the students’ educational itinerary more flexible, 
as is already the case in social, work and consumption relations. “The new paradigms 
encompassing both the labour market and that of education and training, ‘long life training’ and 
‘employability’, are significant strategic modalities” (Dardot & Laval, 2016, p. 333). Thus, it 
contributes to the resignification of the individual’s identity who, through individuation, begins 
to privilege an education directed to meet particular interests in the opportunity to ascend in the 
social and economic sphere. In spite of this thought, the Education Development Plan (PDE ; 
Brazil, 2007) points to an autonomous teaching that is capable of articulating socialization and 
individuation of institutions and students. 

The autonomy of schools and networks, however, is not original, but derives from the  
autonomy of the learner consequent to the process of socialization and individuation.  When the 
latter is threatened by the former, the right of the school and the right of the learner come into 
conflict. There is an antinomy here, right against right. In education, the right of the learner 
takes precedence, in which case a reparative action is justified (Brazil, 2007, p. 40). 

The right to individualized education and individuation is guaranteed by law, as 
mentioned above in the PDE (Brazil, 2007, p. 40). Regarding these tensions present in the field 
of education, Professor Tomaz Tadeu da Silva (2005) highligh ts the issue of neoliberal 
rationality, which, by mobilizing different types of knowledge and knowledge, aims to institute 
and naturalize competition among themselves and between everyone. In addition, the unique 
composition of authentic, autonomous and flexible individuals configures a permanent learning 
that is fostered by the logic of entrepreneurship and self-entrepreneurship. 

This process, which intertwines neoliberalism and education, has its milestone in the socio-
liberal government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC; 1994-2002) and is strengthened 
during the center-left mandates of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff 

                                                 
1 The advance of neoliberalism in Brazil occurs in a forceful way, being criticized by the International 
Monetary Fund, as exposed in an article published by BBC Brasil, on June 30, 2016: The strange day when 
the IMF criticized neoliberalism. Available at: https://www.b bc.com/portuguese/geral-36668582.  

http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-
http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-
http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-


The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 6 

 

(2011-2016); and tends to be consolidated and exacerbated in the neoconservative 
administrations of Michel Temer (2016-2018) and Jair Bolsonaro (2019). 

In Brazil, market rationality is articulated with the public agenda and government policies that 
are independent of ideologies professed by presidential regimes. In the FHC government, for 
example, there was the control of inflation and the expansion of public schools; however, it 
occurred concomitantly with the continuity of the national economic opening to the foreign 
market in addition to the privatization of strategic state-owned companies for the development of 
the nation – Vale do Rio Doce, Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, among others. These actions, 
which were supposedly aimed at the socioeconomic restructuring of the State, began during the 
governments of Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992) and Itamar Franco (1992-1994). 
Moreover, the relations between the State and society have been gradually re -signified since the 
1990s, assuming the capitalist character embodied by neoliberal rationality. The socio -political 
and economic composition assumed is expressed in the harmony between the LDBEN (Brazil, 
1996) and the orientation of international organizations ( OCDE, FMI and World Bank) for 
basic education, especially in peripheral countries. 

In the twilight of the 2000s, the center-left governments (2003-2016) took over the 
management of the national executive power. Affirmative policies, such as the University for All 
Program (ProUni), Bolsa Familia and the expansion of the Family Health Program were 
important in the fight against social inequality. Even so, these acti ons were not enough to 
reduce the concentration of income in the country, given that during the Lula government 
(2003-2010), banking institutions contracted profit records – eight times higher than in the 
previous government, reaching the level of 199 billion reais.2 It is noted that neoliberalism 
adapts and intertwines with the different ideologies of government in order to maximize its 
profits through the increase in the production of consumer goods and services, combined with 
the precariousness of labor relations. 

The previous discussion substantiates the analytical subsequence of this article, which 
has as its theme the association between neoliberalism and education in the field of curricular 
policies. In the continuity of the study, the theoretical and  methodological contribution used in 
the scrutiny of materiality are presented. Then, the influence of neoliberal rationality in the field 
of education is investigated, as well as the basis of this thought in the proposition of policies, 
laws, and educational guidelines designed for the curriculum of the New High School, which is 
configured from the principles “keep learning” and “learn to learn”. 

 

Theory and Method 

This research is circumscribed in the studies of educational and curriculum policies and aims 
to examine the relationship between neoliberal rationality and education, expressed in legal guidelines 
designed for high school, in the period that comprises the advent of LDBEN (Brazil, 1996) and the 
enactment of BNCC-High School (Brazil, 2018). In view of this, the conceptual tools used in this 
work are based on the thought of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Their s tudies provide the 
necessary reading key to understand how the biopolitical process of self-management develops, 
which is established through a set of strategies that aim to govern individuals and the population 
(Foucault, 1996, 2008b). 

                                                 
2 On this topic, there is also an article originally published by Aguinaldo Novo, in the newspaper O Globo 
(26-02-2011), only for subscribers, but available for reading at the Instituto Humanitas Unisinos (IHU 
UNISINOS): Banks had record profits in the Era Lula: R$199 billion, February 27, 2011. Available at: 
http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/noticias/40984-bancos-tiveram-lucro-record-na-era-lula-r$-199- Bills. 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       7  
 

For analysis purposes, in addition to the aforementioned LDBEN (Brazil, 1996), the National 
Curriculum Parameters for High School - PCNEM (Brazil, 2000), the PDE (Brazil, 2007), the 
General National Curriculum Guidelines for Basic Education - DCN (Brazil, 2013) and the National 
Education Plan - PNE 2014/2024 (Brazil, 2015) were listed, because these legal frameworks 
culminated in the elaboration of the BNCC-EM (Brazil, 2013)  2018)4. The materiality chosen 
denotes the intention of endorsing and expanding the influence of the market in the field of 
education, especially in the curriculum designed for high school. 

Thus, in the process of scrutinizing the materials, the following terms were chosen as 
categories of analysis: “learning to learn”, “keep learning” high school, curricular flexibility, formative 
itinerary, life management, individuation, autonomy and responsibility – which is understood here as 
accountability. The first analytical movement examined the entry of business thought in Brazil from 
the second half of the 1990s, more precisely in the period between the promulgation of the LDBEN 
(Brazil, 1996) and the last year of the FHC government, in 2002. Afterwards, the policies 
subsequent to the 2000s were analyzed. Then, in the continuity of the study, the incidence of 
business rationality present in the legal frameworks elaborated with a focus on high school after 
1996 is highlighted. 

By choosing these empirical documents, it is intended to identify which forces operate in 
the constitution of these official guidelines. It is emphasized that the institution of these 
curricular policies converges in strategies of domination, whose intent is to establish networks 
of control that underlie discursive practices that aim at the production of individuals within a 
certain logic. In this case, it obeys neoliberal rationality. 

According to Foucault’s notes (1996, p. 52), to “(...) That a class becomes dominant, that 
it secures its domination, and that this domination reproduces itself, these are the effects of a 
number of effective, systematic tactics that work within grand strategies that ensure that 
domination.” By “dominant class” we mean the business community that, in the field of 
education, consists of formatting the individual’s conduct within the scope and starting from the 
school curriculum designed for High School3. The market’s interest in the school is justified by the 
capacity that education assumes in the process of subjectivizing the social fabric.  Thus, these 
discursive practices embodied by the economic elite gradually permeate the individual and the 
collective, juxtaposing them in neoliberal society. The manifestation of this modus operandi, 
which stems from the neoliberal conjecture and gives rise to specific knowledges articulated 
with other pre-existing ones, is re-signified and replicated through discursiveness that crosses 
educational policies. In order to better understand how this process is established, when 
examining the empirical documents, we resort to the intention of 

(...) to make the rules of formation of concepts, the modes of succession, chaining 
and coexistence of utterances appear, is faced with the problem of epistemological 
structures; studying the formation of objects, the fields in which they emerge and are 
specified, also studying the conditions of appropriation of discourses, is faced with 
the analysis of social formations. (Foucault, 2008a, p. 235) 

 
In view of this, it is necessary to observe how self-government influences the “(...) ‘ self-work’, 
‘self-realization’, ‘self-responsibility’” (Dardot & Laval, 2016, p. 343). At present, these exercises 

                                                 
3 It should be noted that the discussions pointed out in this article regarding the BNCC-EM (Brasil, 2018) date 
back to what was elaborated in Law No. 13,415, of February 16, 2017 (Brasil, 2017), which defined the training 
itineraries and the minimum workload for the New High School. These deliberations were also present in the first 
version of the BNCC, in 2017. Thus, as this is an analysis focused on high school, it was decided to analyze 
exclusively the BNCC-EM. 

 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 8 

 

of the self-emerge from educational and curricular policies combined under the aegis of 
neoliberalism. In its calculation, the objective is to gradually format the conduct of individuals 
within a given rationality (Foucault, 1996). Regarding self-government, Dardot & Laval (2016, p. 
332) understand that in the process between the “(...) the governance of itself and the 
governance of companies, the company defines a new ethic, that is, a certain inner d isposition, a 
certain ethos that must be embodied with a work of vigilance over oneself and that the 
evaluation procedures are responsible for reinforcing and verifying. ” From what weaves the 
term ethos, it is evident that this concept expresses “(...) a certain way of being and acting, the 
result of processes by which each one learns to see himself, to reflect on his own actions,  to 
operate transformations about himself” (Dal’Igna & Fabris, 2015, p. 78). 

By appropriating education, the Brazilian business c ommunity aspires to develop 
strategies that intend to subjectivize individuals according to the demands of international 
organizations (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Bank and 
International Monetary Fund, among others) responsible for instigating global policies of large-
scale evaluation. When analyzing how market rationality imprints its discourses in the field of 
education, it is important to observe how intensely this method is configured in games of power 
and knowledge.  

I need to distinguish between power relations as strategic games between 
freedoms—strategic games that cause some to try to determine the conduct 
of others, to which others try to respond by not letting their conduct be 
determined or by determining the conduct of others in return—and states of 
domination, which are what is generally called power. (Foucault, 2006, p. 285) 

 
From this marketing perspective, the authenticity and autonomy of the individual are promoted 
within and from the curriculum. Through the promotion of these precepts, we seek to re-signify 
the way students perceive and constitute themselves both in society and in the world of work. 
Entrepreneurial thinking is inserted in the field of education through the increase of curricular 
policies, which do not aim to overlap or break with pedagogical-educational thinking, but to 
merge and transfigure it to market rationality, that is, to make students think and conduct 
themselves similarly to a company. 

The Neoliberal Inference in Educational Policies (1996-2003) 

The dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the 1980s and 1990s  
marked the “triumph of capitalism”, which demanded the characterization of new social practices, 
work, and consumption that have impacted the field of education. The formative process designed for 
the new learner aims at social development and critical awareness; however, it privileges preparation for 
the world of work and the generation of employment and income. This does not mean that there is a 
need for the expansion or expansion of technical schools, but rather the design of a subjectivation 
that corroborates the institution of a neoliberal rationality based on self -entrepreneurship. Because it 
is essential for the individual to acquire the ability to be flexible in the face of contingencies and, 
thus, forge himself in a continuum of learning — for life. This exercise of the self begins with the 
decision-making regarding the modeling of curricular contents by the student when entering the 
New High School. 

Between 1996 and 2000, the composition of a common curriculum capable of 
encompassing the municipalities and states of the federation was conceived. The intention to 
establish a national curriculum guideline aims to “(...) a common basic education to be observed 
in the curricular proposals for municipal or state elementary education or in the school unit 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       9  
 

itself, had, as a counterpart, the non-mandatory nature of the PCN” (Bonamino & Martínez, 
2002, pp. 372-373). This opportunity stems from the guiding character present in the National 
Curriculum Parameters - High School (Brazil, 2000), whose practices are not imposing. Each school 
institution would be responsible for developing its own teaching plan, having in the PCNEM the 
necessary contribution for the elaboration of its Pedagogical Political Project. It should be noted 
that this predilection does not exempt the PCNEM from a political intention that, even 
implicitly, aims to institute competencies and skills a priori in the students. 

These are defined in terms of knowledge and skills useful for the functioning of 
the economy — with reference to the labor market and competition — and for 
flexible adaptations to changing conditions. As a result, education systems around the 
world are increasingly similar. (Biesta, 2018, p. 26) 

 
As mentioned above, this thinking based on knowledge and skills that  are “useful” for the market 
corroborates item 5.1 set forth in the PCNEM (Brazil, 2000, p. 92), in which the curricular 
organization and the pedagogical proposal designed for the formation of the individual should 
“(...) linking education to the world of work and social practice; be able to keep learning; prepare 
for work and the exercise of citizenship; have the flexibility to adapt to new occupancy 
conditions.” The advent of the PCNEM provided a peculiar look of the business community 
and the government in relation to high school, as this is the final stage of the school training 
process of the students. Upon completion, the student will need to enjoy competencies and 
skills related to the propensity to keep learning. The neo-subject will have to adapt to the 
different realities of work and occupation imposed by the characteristic presentification of  
neoliberal times, which is praised in the PCNEM in two  distinct moments: 

(...) the development of skills to continue learning, autonomously and critically, 
at more complex levels of studies. 
(...) I - development of the ability to learn and continue learning, intellectual 
autonomy and critical thinking, in order to be able to continue studies and  to 
adapt flexibly to new conditions of occupation or improvement. (Brazil, 2000, p. 
101) 

 
Therefore, among the competencies praised in the PCNEM, the development of the ability to 
“keep learning” is highlighted, which, in turn, requires the young person to be flexible in the 
face of market demands and constant improvement. In other words, it means to keep up-to-date 
and attractive to the world of work. In this method, performance and performance are 
paramount. 

This process began with the enactment of the LDBEN (Brazil, 1996), which advocated 
the flexibility of the curriculum of the Brazilian education systems. According to Santos & 
Diniz-Pereira (2016), the first attempt to standardize the curriculum was established in the post -
military period (1964-1985). This homogenization aimed to articulate the “keep learn” with the 
possibility of flexibilization of the formative itinerary. It is understood that “(...) the educated 
person is capable of learning permanently.” (R. Silva, 2018, p. 561). Therefore, the neo-subject 
could, in theory, define his/her/their education through the formatting of his/her/their 
knowledge, constituted through the selection of contents according to market needs and/or 
his/her/their own desires. 

According to the provisions of section IV, item II, article 35, alluding to high school, 
“(...) the basic preparation for work and citizenship of the learner, to keep learning, so as  to be 
able to adapt flexibly to new conditions of occupation or subsequent improvement ” (Brazil, 
1996). It should be noted that this same passage ipsis litteris is present in the PCNEM (Brazil, 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 10 

 

2000), as mentioned above. It is inferred, then, the opportunity for a teaching bas ed on the 
rationality of the market in which it is engendered within the scope and from the LDBEN. In 
view of this, it is evident that a considerable portion of its articles are only transposed to other 
subsequent legal frameworks in order to endorse the g overnment’s position in line with the 
business community. 

This new social reality, which has been consolidated since the 1990s, aims to forge 
individuals within what neoliberal rationality advocates. If in the first half of the 20th century 
there was class consciousness, in which the employee discerned his condition as a wage -earner 
and the separation between employee and employer was translucent, in the present, these 
relations are diluted and confused. Through the discursive basis of self-entrepreneurship, the 
contemporary individual dissociates himself from the Marxist understanding of classical labor 
and union collective representation and begins to conceive himself as an associate or 
collaborator of the company. 

Investment in human capital remains, but this process becomes an individualized action 
rather than an institutional one. The “employee” configures his training according to what he 
wants for himself and, similar to the management of a company, conducts himself according to 
the contingencies and demands of the market. The Fordist conception in which the worker 
perceived himself as part of the manufacturing machine, as in the past, does not combine the 
socioeconomic reality of today. The result of these discursiveness manifests itself more strongly 
in labor relations. The precariousness of employment that is engendered under the risk assumed in 
certain life choices is blamed and naturalized by the individual himself through education, which 
shapes the conduct of himself under the neoliberal spectrum. 

This accountability is consolidated and propagated through autonomy in life 
management, which begins with the curricular modeling listed by the student during high 
school. On this issue, Dardot & Laval (2016, p. 327) understand that, in this process, the “(...) 
distance between the individual and the company that employs him. He must work for his own 
efficacy, for the intensification of his effort, as if this conduct came from himself, as if it were 
commanded to him from within by an imperious order of his own desire, which he cannot 
resist.” In this assumption, the development of human capital is articulated with the 
socioeconomic model and school education that “(...) consistent with the ‘capital configured in 
the child’, may be the key to an economic theory of population” (Schultz, 1973, p. 9). It is in this 
sense that the interest of the business community in education is founded, more precisely in the 
training of the individual still of school age. By capturing schools and inferring itself in 
educational and curriculum policies, the business community permeates and re-signifies social, 
work and consumer relations. From this point of view, it should be noted that 

(...) education is linked to biopolitics and to a certain form of neoliberal 
governmentality, namely: the one that has been instituted in the United States of 
America since the beginning of the 1960s, particularly under the influence of the 
economic analyses undertaken by the Chicago School, and which had in the 
theory of Human Capital one of its most poignant expressions. (Costa, 2009, p. 
172) 
 

As mentioned above, neoliberal governmentality was established by the Chicago School in the 
1960s and sought to influence the field of education through economic orientations. The 
theoretical foundation of these guidelines lies in the theory of human capital. This neoliberal 
governmentality engendered in the 1960s predates the advent of neoliberal rationality in the 
1980s. The period of 1960 underpins the conditions for the emergence of the business discourse 
that, in the present and in the field of education, shifts the centrality of teaching to learning. This 



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method, at the present time, has a certain correspondence with the past. To the extent that it 
assumes a certain individuality that results in a neoliberal pedagogical governmentality, the 
formative regime established in high school aims to prepare students for the world of work and 
life in society. 

The opportunity of the business community to foster the capacity for autonomy and 
adaptability in the individual, similar to what occurs in companies, is not a characteristic 
restricted to the current conjecture. It is noteworthy that the purpose of an education that 
stimulates these requirements focuses on a formative process oriented from the student’s 
interest, something announced and advocated by Killpatrick (1978, p. 74), in the 1920s: “We 
have to face the unknown future, in such rapid change as has not been known until now. Hence 
the corresponding need for our students to learn to adapt to a situation, which we, their 
teachers, can only partially glimpse.” From this point of view, the teacher would have the strict 
function of protecting or facilitating the learning of the student “(...) through criticism, 
questions, and suggestions” (Dewey, 2002, p. 45). 

It is evident that in the thought promulgated by the New School Movement lies the 
conception of a student-centered teaching-learning, something that precedes the Chicago 
School. There is a gradual shift from teaching to learning with a view to student protagonism (a 
recurrent term in Brazilian educational policies). 

The need to promote “lifelong learners” is linked to the constant adaptation that drives 
them to be flexible. The intention of centering the process of educational formation on the 
student is neither new nor innovative, as this method has already been present in the New 
School movement in the United States. At the beginning of the last century, the American 
pedagogue William Heard Kilpatrick (1978), an adherent of John Dewey’s pedagogy, understood 
that the teacher’s action should be restricted to the application of the curriculum; thus, the 
figure of the teacher would be in the background in the process of student formation. According to 
the author, based on the development of the skills of each student “(...) it is concluded that 
learning follows a direction established by the desire, purpose or intention of the learner” 
(Kilpatrick, 1978, p. 70). 

Moreover, the aforementioned terms “unknown future” and “learning to adapt to a 
situation” are similar to what corroborates the neoliberal paradigm. These principles, 
appreciated by the New Schoolers, underlie in the contemporary legal frameworks designed for 
the elaboration of the formative itinerary to be outlined by the neo-subject. The school operates as 
a laboratory for the development of their autonomy, decision -making, and self-responsibility. 
The choice of content that will shape one’s curriculum in high school has the purpose of 
stimulating in students a certain aptitude necessary for entry into the job market, occupation, 
and income generation – in short, to train entrepreneurs and self-entrepreneurs. 

School tests in the historical context of New School, such as the ABC test, developed by 
Dewey (1922), aimed to standardize the evaluation in order to measure performance and 
effectiveness of teaching in schools. These ABC tests preceded entry into school, similar to the 
college entrance exam, which categorized students according to their “level of cognition.” The 
verification tests measured reading and writing skills (Lourenço Filho, 2008). In the liberal and 
Fordist context of the first decades of the 1900s, 

(...) intelligence tests focus on higher psychological products or mature psychological 
categories, do not assess the conditions for learning or do little to help in the assessment 
of intelligence when it is not yet developed, since the tests are conditioned by the 
contents they aim to measure. (Sass, 2011, p. 978) 
 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 12 

 

The inclination for liberalism, rooted in Fordism, aimed at a double mo vement in Brazil: to train 
large-scale labor for the labor market and to institute an education along the lines of Fordism. 
This intention was present in the debates that circulated at the First National Conference on 
Education, held in 1927, in the city of Curitiba. In thesis n° 5, “The Needs of Modern 
Pedagogy”, presented by Lindolpho Xavier, the author proposes for the full socioeconomic 
development of Brazil an education along the lines of liberal and Fordist thought. In his words: 
“All modern pedagogy will be Fordian in Ford’s books: it will seek in Ford’s books the 
processes of victory, with the maximum of humanity, in the most intense system of economics, 
with the generality of specializations. For Fordism there are no cripples, there are no useless; all 
cooperate for the general work” (Xavier, 1927, p. 71). Society should be productive and each 
individual would contribute according to peculiar physical and cognitive aptitudes, and the 
function of the school would be to form in a homogeneous way. These  students were staggered 
and then homogenized throughout their formative process, which differs from the current 
situation in which diversity and difference are characteristics of the socioeconomic and 
educational model. 

It is noted that the organizational management model of society was based on Fordism 
and the homogenization of industrial artifacts that reflected in the school structure and training 
of individuals. The students were designed in such a way as to morally and professionally 
replicate the master. With the advent of Toyotism after 1980, the productive and socioeconomic 
model is re-signified and industrial artifacts take on customized characteristics in order to meet 
the contingent demands of consumers who excel in authenticity. In view of this,  it is necessary 
for professionals to adapt to the volatile demands of the market, which reverberates directly in 
the relationship between employer and worker and teacher, student and curriculum (Pizolati, 
2020, p. 522). 

In correspondence with the present, the statistics extracted from school tests are still 
widely used in Brazil, ranging from early childhood education to higher education. In this way, 
the use of school measurement and evaluation is currently different from the past and manifests 
ambivalence, while evaluating the whole from the student-individual and the school-institution, 
that is, a performance and performance model that merges students and school institutions into 
an algorithm. 

A “(...) the concentration of industry and the division of labor practically eliminated 
domestic and communal occupations – at least for educational purposes” (Dewey, 2002, p. 22), 
which, in effect, reverberated in the pedagogical praxis of the early twentieth century. As 
similarities in both historical contexts, the influence of economics in the field of education and 
the change in educational policies that affect the active method – escolanovist – stand out. If we 
adopt this pedagogical perspective that is characterized by student protagonism  – autonomy and 
flexibility – it’s not unique to today, nor is it innovative. 

That said, after the analysis of educational and curriculum policies subsequent to the 
1990s, carried out in this section, and a brief historical digression regarding the active method 
and the New School movement (20th century), it is possible to locate and examine how 
neoliberal rationality gradually began to shape the ways of being and existing inside and outside 
space scholastic. However, in the continuation of the research, the neoliberal spe ctrum is 
mapped to the field of education. 

 

Learning, Individuation and Work (2003-2010) 

The neoliberal paradigm resides in the change in the relations of consumption, work, and 
human habits, in which the ephemeral constitutes the main gradient of contemporary society. As a 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       13  
 

result, the products, as well as the training of the individual, become contingent in the face of 
the volatile demands of the market. This paradigmatic re signification begins in the field of 
economics and systematically crosses the field of education through laws and decrees permeated 
by business rationality. 

Teaching that used to be a posteriori – thought from the teacher to the student – now 
develops a priori – the student is the one who defines his or her formative itinerary in order to 
prepare autonomously for the world of work and social insertion . Life management, called as a 
technique of the self, aims at the self-formation of young people for the uncertain future that 
awaits them. In this formative process, presenteeism and the utilitarianism of knowledge are 
articulated, key elements in the commodification of teaching and learning. As Bauman (2008) 
points out, students are conceived as potential customers and education as a commodity to be 
consumed. This understanding, which defines knowledge as something marketable and the 
individual as someone who must be endowed with a capacity for continuous learning, is gestated 
within the scope and from economistic theories linked to neoliberal rationality. This formative 
continuum aims to model the individual according to the demands of the market. It will then be 
up to the new subject to identify what will be the necessary knowledge to format their 
curriculum in order to allocate themselves to the world of work. In this method, not only 
pecuniary interests are articulated, but also personal interests such as quality of life, for example.  

Since education is an important tool for the production of the individual, the Brazilian 
business community seeks to progressively influence the curricular guidelines. “The flexibilization of 
labor relations, the restructuring of the role of the State, the modification in the training of workers 
and a new quality of basic education are expressions of ‘transformations’ that are accepted by capital, 
as long as they further consolidate its interests” (Oliveira, 2003, p. 52). From this point of view, as 
pointed out by Professor Sylvio Gadelha Costa (2009, p. 172), it is evident that 

(...) certain economic values, as they migrated from the economy to other 
domains of social life, disseminating themselves socially, gained a strong 
normative power, instituting processes and policies of subjectivation that have 
been transforming subjects of rights into micro-enterprises — entrepreneurs. 

 
The reflection of the imbrication between neoliberal rationality and education is consolidated in 
the pressure for results and performance, which focuses on surpassing oneself and others. To 
this end, the proposition of educational policies that evaluate the “quality” of teaching and 
learning offered by school institutions would be essential for the formation of this competitive 
neo-subject. In view of this, the individual could choose which school and curriculum would 
best suit his/her/their desires and life planning. In line with business thinking, in 2007, the 
Minister of Education, Fernando Haddad, ratified the large-scale evaluation of schools based on 
the establishment of the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB).  

Therefore, it is in order to adapt Brazilian education to what the OECD establishes for 
education that large-scale assessments, such as the National High School Exam (ENEM) and 
the Basic Education Evaluation System – SAEB (Brazil, 2019), were carried out in the country. 
The objective set by the government was to promote “(...) a set of large-scale external 
evaluations that allow Inep to carry out a diagnosis of Brazilian basic education and some 
factors that may interfere with student performance, providing an indication of the quality of 
the education offered” (Brazil, 2019). 

By investigating the opportunity on the part of the market and the government to raise 
Brazil’s score in the international mechanisms of large-scale evaluation, it is possible to perceive 
the opportunity of both to attest to the quality of the education offered to the population. In 
this scenario, which is engendered by the BNCC-EM, it is intended to standardize and bring the 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 14 

 

education offered closer to what the market demands. During the public hearings that 
formulated the Base, between 2016 and 2017, the need to raise the performance of students in 
large-scale assessment mechanisms was raised in the scope of ensuring the quality of teaching 
and learning. Regarding this issue, it is important to highlight that 

(...) the BNCC is configured as another attempt to strengthen and subsidize the 
neoliberal guidelines that are established according to the concept of quality of 
education of this economic model, centered on a model of teaching by skills 
and competencies that establishes the matrices of references and, thus, favors 
the application of large-scale assessments, so that employability, 
Entrepreneurship and skills pedagogy act to strengthen the interests of capital. 
(Ribeiro et al., 2020, p. 11) 

 
In line with the excerpt quoted above, it can be seen that such educational and curricular 
proposals came close to what is advocated “(...) the economistic perspective of the reform 
discourse as well as the approximation with the private sector” (M. Silva, 2018, p. 3). Mass 
measurement policies, such as Prova and Provinha Brazil, the National High School Exam (ENEM) 
and the International Student Assessment Exam (PISA) aim to verify the quality of education. 
Implicitly, what is intended to be measured is the level of knowledge acquired a nd produced by the 
individual pertinent to the labor market and the provision of self.  

The development of a market-oriented education demands a flexible curriculum,  which is 
willing to meet the interests of both individuals and the business community. Conc epts such as 
“(...) learning expectations. (...) learning rights” (Hypolito, 2019, p. 188) prelude the “learning to 
learn” that, since the 2000s, has been instituted within and from the Global Education Reform 
Movement (GERM). GERM is articulated with accountability, which “is articulated around 
three principles of educational policy: standards, accountability, and decentralization ” (Hypolito, 
2019, p. 189). Therefore, the flexibilization of the self -concerns the ability of each person to 
condition himself to the demands and market orientations that tend to result in the 
precariousness of labor relations. 

By establishing amplified and homogenized evaluations, the objective is to control and 
model the student under the neoliberal prism, an old claim of the bu siness community that has 
been gradually designated since the 1990s. Given the assumption of quality, the purpose of this 
process is to measure the development of students in strategic areas for the economy, such as 
mathematics and the vernacular language – in the case of Brazil, Portuguese. Thus, the (self) 
competition between public and private educational institutions through school Olympiads is 
stimulated, and the ranking of individual and institutional performance promoted by evaluations 
on a large scale. Many schools disclose the harmonic average that their students obtained in 
ENEM in order to advertise and attest to the quality of the education offered. This method is 
more common in the private sector, since the objective of training is to prepare st udents for 
entry into higher education, preferably in federal institutions.  

Thus, it is based on the intention to measure the teaching and learning processes that 
have been gestated since 1996. “It is understandable, then, how the establishment of indicators 
and ‘rankings’ is part of the expansion of the neoliberal mode of subjectivation: any decision, 
whether medical, school, or professional, belongs to the individual ” (Dardot & Laval, 2016, p. 350). 
In this sense, Anderson (2010, p. 71) demonstrates that 

Education, based on results, has created a culture of accountability, i.e., 
performance criteria, performance indicators, performance management, etc. (...). 
The need to be constantly held accountable increases our visibility and requires  
us to align our performances with external accountability criteria.  



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       15  
 

The results and performance adhere to the imperative of curricular flexibility and autonomy 
which, in turn, imputes to the student the responsibility for curricular choices and life 
management. From the articulation between individualization and flexibilization, it is inferred 
the possibility of the neo-individual constituting himself in a singular, unique and authentic way. 
Through these propositions, the objective is to safeguard the aut onomy and aspirations of 
students in relation to their insertion in society and the world of work, as denoted by the PDE 
(Brazil, 2007) in line with the legal frameworks enacted between 1996 and 2018 . Regarding the 
concept of individualization and accountability, Bauman (2008, pp. 130-131) shows that 

“Individualization” consists in transforming human “identity” from a “given” 
thing into a “task”—and entrusting actors with the responsibility of performing 
that task and of bearing the consequences (and also the side effects) of their 
performance; in other words, it consists in establishing a de jure autonomy (but 
not necessarily a de facto autonomy). 
 

From this perspective, Vallejo (2002) points out that governmental actions in the field of education 
are added to the external contingencies promoted by the social, economic and technological changes 
peculiar to globalization. Consequently, there is a need to compose the neo-subject in such a way 
as to forge itself in a “(...) self-manager: really.” (Foucault, 2008b, p. 311). It should be noted 
that the homo aeconomicus conceptualized by Foucault (2008b) differs from the subject of 
exchange thought and instituted in the context of liberalism. The neo -subject self-manages and 
invests (governs) in himself similar to the management of a company; necessarily, he constitutes 
himself a lifelong learner. Thus, in the scenario to which neoliberal rationality is engendered, the 
training process implies curricular standardization. Paradoxically, the remodeling of the New 
High School occurs through its curricular flexibility. In the words of Pinto (2017, p. 1058):  

(...) the educational policies instituted in Brazil in recent decades have been 
configured around actions aimed at the systemic organization of Basic Education, 
an action coordinated by the Ministry of Education. Consequently, the 
proposition of a BNCC is part of the set of these actions, in the perspective of 
configuring a conceptual unit to the curriculum. 

 
The neoliberalization of education in Brazil is a reflection  of the influence of American and 
European authors who greatly impact the debates about the curriculum in the country. Second 
Triches & Aranda (2016), these foreign intellectuals preach in their speeches the defense of 
curricular adaptations aimed at the formation of the student as demanded by the international 
market. 

Moreover, when basing one’s thinking on foreign theories, local particularities are 
sometimes disregarded, as in the case of Brazil. Issues such as basic sanitation and access to drinking 
water should precede, in importance, other topics such as entrepreneurship and school gamification, 
since different regions of Brazil are in different social strata, in fact, this occurs even in locations in 
the same city (Pizolati, 2020). Following the study, the consolidation of neoliberal rationality in the 
field of education is investigated. 
 

Consolidation of Neoliberal Rationality in the Field of Education             
(2010-2018) 

In the period from 2010 to 2019, four important legal frameworks were developed in 
Brazil that contemplate business thinking: DCN (Brazil, 2013), PNE (Brazil, 2015) and BNCC -
EM (Brazil, 2018). It can be inferred from these laws and decrees the establishment of a student 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 16 

 

education directed to the world of work and the generat ion of employment and income as 
symbols of social inclusion. This position assumed by these educational policies is intimately 
linked to neoliberal rationality, which aims to outline the formative itinerary of the individual 
according to the assumptions of self-entrepreneurship and self-entrepreneurship. 

The institution of the BNCC-EM aimed to implement it through the collaboration of the 
Brazilian educational systems. According to CNE/CP Opinion No. 15/2018, approved on 
December 4 of the same year and CNE/CP Resolutions No. 4 and No. 2 of December 17 of the 
same year, establishes the MS-Base as the regulatory framework for the final stage of Basic Education 
– consisting of early childhood education, elementary school, and high school. With the officialization 
of the BNCC-EM, the criticism in relation to the promulgation of the Base lies in the lack of dialogue 
between society and the government, since the binomial New High School and BNCC were 
designated 

As a matter of urgency and not without resistance, the federal government instituted 
the new high school through Provisional Measure (MP) No. 746/2016 (Law No. 
13,415/2017), trampling over the National Education Plan 2014-2024 and all the 
accumulated debate on the elaboration of goals and public policies related to 
Brazilian education. The two measures promote profound changes in the 
organization and curriculum of Brazilian high school, among them the narrowing of 
training and, not without reason, aroused indignation in society and in the academic, 
union and student circles, whose struggles and resistances have been taking place in 
defense of the right to education and differences and to a public school with public 
management. In addition to being secular, of social quality, of State responsibility, for 
all and opposed to the commodification and privatization of education. (Costa & 
Silva, 2019, p. 4) 

 
As stated above, the BNCC-EM and the PNE (2014-2014) promoted a systematic modification of 
what weaves the elaboration of the curriculum, disregarding the debate w ith intellectual authorities in 
the field of education, teachers and students. Another question on the part of researchers in the area 
is the fact that the implementation of the Base ignored all the debate held during the preparation of 
the PNE (2014-2024). The BNCC-EM was concerned with praising a curriculum that meets the 
multiplicity of individual and market interests, in which the formation of the individual is thought of 
within the scope and from the imperative of curricular flexibility juxtaposed with  the mobilization of 
competencies and skills. Regarding these two concepts, 

In the BNCC, competence is defined as the mobilization of knowledge (concepts 
and procedures), skills (cognitive and socio-emotional practices), attitudes and 
values to solve complex demands of daily life, the full exercise of citizenship and 
the world of work. (Brazil, 2018, p. 8) 

 
Contrasting education for citizenship, M. Silva (2018) understands that “In the devices that 
guide curricular propositions based on competences, a conception of human education 
preponderates marked by the intention of adapting to the logic of the market and  adapting to 
society through an abstract notion of citizenship” (p. 10). 

In this perspective to which the Base is configured, especially  the flexibility of the 
training itinerary, it is emphasized that this intention is not innovative as assumed by the 
Government, since the National Council of Education, from the CNE/CP Opinion N o. 
11/2009, instituted, almost a decade ago, the curricular flexibility in the justification of enabling 
the autonomy of students in the choice of the contents that would compose their training,  
contemplating an education focused on the development of cit izenship and the world of work. 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       17  
 

To this end, knowledge and skills would be mobilized within and from the curriculum so that 
the student establishes in himself the capacity for cognitive and socio -emotional autonomy. 

Passions and desires would then be the catalysts for the performance and performance 
of this neo-subject so that his insertion in society and in the world of work could be 
consolidated. The process does not end but begins from the last stage of its formative process, 
basic education – high school. In view of this, according to the BNCC-EM (Brazil, 2018), the 
aim is to promote the inclusion of central and mandatory components provided for in 
educational legislation and standards, in addition to flexible content ingredients. Thus, by 
making the curriculum malleable, it is intended to enable the student the opportunity to outline 
his/her/their formative itinerary according to individual interests mixed with the conditions of 
offers that each school institution makes available to its students . 

Encourage the construction of flexible curricula that allow students to develop 
diversified training itineraries that better respond to the heterogeneity and plurality of 
their conditions, interests and aspirations, with the provision of spaces and times for 
open and creative use. 
 The high school curriculum will consist of the National Common 
Curricular Base and training itineraries, which should be organized through the offer 
of different curricular arrangements, according to the relevance to the local context 
and the possibility of the education systems, namely: 

I - languages and their technologies.  
II - mathematics and its technologies. 
III - natural sciences and their technologies. 
IV - applied human and social sciences. 
V - technical and professional training. (Brazil, 2018, p. 296, p. 467)4 

 
In effect, these changes in the curriculum do not apply to basic education in its entirety, but only 
to students entering high school, subject to the flexibility and autonomy of the training itinerary. 
The imposition of this measure stems from the following understanding: it is understood that 
the young people in this age group would be in a position to choose the necessary content to 
format their curriculum according to what they want for themselves. Thus, “(...) from the 
moment it is assumed that the individual is able to access the information necessary for his 
choice, it must be assumed that he becomes fully responsible for the risks involved ” (Dardot & 
Laval, 2016, p. 349). 

The curricular flexibility envisions the possibility of technical -vocational education 
and/or preparation for entry into higher education. In view of this, the selection of certain 
contents that will compose the formative grid of this neo -subject is no longer the responsibility  
of the teacher, the school or the State, but of the student himself, who is compelled by his or 
her life choices. 

Unlike Elementary School, for High School there is no indication of years in the 
presentation of skills, not only due to the more flexible nature of the curriculum 
for this level of education, but also, as already mentioned, to the degree of 
autonomy of the students, which is supposed to be achieved. This proposal no 
longer imposes restrictions and needs for the establishment  of sequences (which 
are already flexible in Elementary Education), and each school system and school 

                                                 
4 In the sequence of this work, the same citation may be pointed out as present on different pages within the 
aforementioned legal framework chosen for citation. 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 18 

 

can organize the sequences and simultaneities locally, considering the general 
organization criteria presented after each field of action.  (Brazil, 2018, p. 493) 

 
As explained above, the New High School will be offered by areas of knowledge. In this way, other 
areas of knowledge are made more flexible, making them mostly optional and the teaching of 
mathematics and Portuguese language are maintained as mandatory components – “(...) 60% of 
compulsory subjects and 40% of electives, at the student ’s choice” (Silva et al., 2018, p. 19). In 
view of this, it meets the international interests that measure precisely the mathematical 
knowledge and the mastery of the vernacular language in their evaluation processes on a large 
global scale. 

This method is the result of educational policies based on flexibility and self -
responsibility, according to PISA, which is ideologically linked to the  OECD. In addition, as 
Sahlberg (2005) and Fuller (2018) point out, international assessment systems seek to measure 
and attest to the performance and performance of the student and the school institution. In this 
sense, “(...) the success or failure of schools and teachers [which] is often assessed through 
standardized tests and external assessments, in a reductive and decontextualized way ” (Marinho 
et al., 2018, p. 927). 

Broadfoot & Black (2004) point out that the intention to globalize performance and 
performance is manifested through the institution of a culture of testing characteristic of the 
current neoliberal conjecture, that is, a “learning society” (Lima, 2017, Pozo, 2004). The 
elaboration of the curriculum in the current context aims to offer a ra nge of competencies and 
skills to be developed by the student, who would have at his disposal a portion of eligible 
content to model his formative itinerary and life management. The interest of the business 
community in training labor is implicit in camouflaging itself in the valuation and autonomy of 
students, supposedly elevating them to the protagonist of their formative itinerary, because in 
this process the entrepreneur of himself is fostered. From this angle, the Base would serve as an 
educational guideline, similar to what occurred in relation to the LDBEN, in both legal 
frameworks to the final decision regarding the distribution of activities and the modulation of 
the curriculum, being at the discretion of the education networks . 

(...) it is up to education systems and networks, as well as schools, in their 
respective spheres of autonomy and competence, to incorporate into curricula 
and pedagogical proposals the approach to contemporary issues that affect 
human life on a local, regional and global scale, preferably in a transversal and 
integrative way. (Brazil, 2018, p. 19) 

In line with the logic of the market, financial education would overlap in importance with the 
teaching of the arts, sociology, and philosophy. Converging with this thought, the Government 
of the State of Paraná plastered the offer of disciplines related to the subjects of humanity for 
high school, replacing them with financial education. When analyzing the BNCC-MS, it is 
observed that the criterion on the choice of contents would be  under the responsibility of the 
student, and not of the institution, which would be responsible for offering and not electing 
(restricting) the curricular components. In 2021, the curricular offer for high school occurs 
unilaterally, restricting the possibility of a flexible curriculum. The state government assumes 
this movement because it supposedly equates the curricular matrices, in which this curricular 
rearrangement would consist of reducing the workload of these disciplines, by creating financial 
education, safeguarding the minimum number of class hours of the disciplines of Portuguese 
language and mathematics. 

From this action, it was observed that financial education would be applied in the 
curriculum as a formal discipline, and not as a transversal theme, as guided by the Base. “Among 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       19  
 

the planned changes is the guarantee of four weekly classes of Portuguese Language and three of 
Mathematics, which today does not happen in the entire state network. The government also 
foresees the creation of new disciplines, such as Financial Education ” (Fragão, 2020). It is 
noteworthy that the course taken by education in favor of neoliberal rationality is not restricted 
to just one state, this new market paradigm that is presented in the current scenario tends to 
expand throughout the Brazilian territory. 

According to Base (Brazil, 2018), since 10% of enrollments in high school would 
correspond to vocational education and only 16% of students who complete high school are able 
to enter higher education, the intention to reformulate the Brazilian school system concerns reducing 
the “overload” of 13 subjects (Ferreti & Silva, 2017, Silva & Scheibe, 2017). Added to this, in 
addition to the reduction of disciplines that are less valued for the market, there is the 
encouragement of other disciplines that dialogue directly with neoliberal rationality, for example, 
financial education and self-entrepreneurship. These movements engendered within the curriculum 
reflect the current attack that the humanities suffer as a whole by society, which, in turn, is permeated 
daily by pro-market discourses: economic liberalism and minimal state. To these weaves the school 
subjects, currently divided into languages and codes, which involves Portuguese, literature and 
foreign language — English or Spanish; humanities, which includes history, geography, 
philosophy, and sociology; natural sciences, composed of biology, chemistry and physics; and, 
mathematics, being the discipline itself in its different approaches. Regarding the assumptions 
that sustain these curricular prerogatives, it is highlighted that: “This new structure values youth 
protagonism, since it provides for the offer of varied training it ineraries to meet the multiplicity 
of interests of students: academic deepening and technical professional training ” (Brazil, 2018, 
p. 465, p. 467). 

However, even though the focus of the educational actions presents in the BNNC -EM 
concerns curricular flexibility, it is emphasized that it is not a matter of cognitively plastering the 
student, as the formation of critical thinking and social responsibility are stimulated in the Base. 
In addition, the unique composition of authentic, autonomous and flexible in dividuals 
configures a permanent learning, which is fostered and intrinsic to the business logic. The 
definition of the concept of autonomy precedes the Base. According to the PDE (Brazil, 2007, 
p. 41), 

Understanding the concept of individual autonomy requires a perception of the 
dialectical nature of the relationship between socialization and individuation. To 
educate autonomous men and women is to ensure the emergence of critical 
subjectivities against the background of a cultural tradition generated by l anguage 
and work, which is only possible through the development of skills to 
appropriate content and the ability to take a critical stance towards it.  

 
According to the excerpt above, the formation of a critical conscience is desirable while the 
process of individuation goes through socialization, because just like in school, life in society or in 
the world of work is established from the relationships between subjects. In view of this, it is 
necessary to develop a critical awareness in order to promote the capacity of perception regarding 
the cultural production arising from language and work in th e context in which it is inserted. 

If, as a result, “some would argue that that’s all there is to education and that that’s all 
education should be focused on—that it should be restricted to the ‘basics,’ the ‘facts,’ and leave 
difficult questions that have to do with values in the hands of the family or the community ” 
(Biesta, 2018, p. 23). Also, according to the author, “Education, in other words, is never just to 
qualify children and young people and offer them a particular place in society. The ability to 
assume a critical perspective towards existing traditions, practices, ways of doing and being, also 
occurs after leaving school” (Biesta, 2018, p. 24). 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 20 

 

Although a critical and social education is desirable, it is still understood that the stimulus 
to flexible curricula results from business demand and is gestated in different political periods in 
Brazil after the 1990s. Essentially, it is important to emphasize that only in the PNE (Brazil, 
2015), 2014–2024-decade, curricular flexibility appears as normative, until then non-existent in 
previous PNEs. 

It is then marked the advance of the business community and the current neoliberal 
conjecture in the propositions for educational policies and curriculum, in which the principle of 
“learning to learn” aims to provide the individual with more “(...) freedom and autonomy, which 
is the function of public policies in general and educational policies in particular ” (Brazil, 2015, 
p. 10). To this end, the flexibilization of the training itinerary , aiming at the world of work, is 
present in the BNCC-EM and in the PNE, which is recurrent in previous enactments. Flexibility 
was previously praised in the DCN (Brazil, 2013)5. Regarding this document, it should be noted 
that 

The training path must, in this sense, be open and contextualized, including not 
only the mandatory core curricular components, provided for in the legislation 
and educational standards, but also, as each school project establishes, other 
flexible and variable components that enable training paths that meet the 
numerous interests, needs and characteristics of the students.  

(...) education systems should provide for flexible curricula, with different 
alternatives, so that young people have the opportunity to choose the 
training path that best meets their interests, needs and aspirations. 

(...) 2.5.1.3. High School 
II - the basic preparation for work, taken as an educational principle, and for the 
citizenship of the student, in order to continue learning, in order to be able to 
face new conditions of occupation or subsequent improvement; (...). (Brazil, 
2013, p. 27, 39, 40, 66) 

 
Based on what the DCN presupposes, these changes imply the formation of pre -adults, those 
entering high school. The “keep learning”accentuates the curricular norms that equally impact 
Youth and Adult Education (EJA). The opportunity of education lies in the preparation for the 
world of work and the generation of income, which impels the individual to constantly update 
his knowledge. Also, according to the excerpt quoted above, terms such as interests, needs, and 
aspirations are recurrent in other subsequent passages of this document and appear written ipsis 
litteris in other educational guidelines analyzed throughout the article. Flexibility is configured in 
a device that aims to guide the curriculum designed for the formation of young people and 
adults, both in regular high school and in EJA. 

EJA courses should be guided by flexibility, both in terms of curriculum and 
time and space, so that they are: 

I - Symmetry with regular education for children and adolescents is broken, 
in order to allow individualized paths and meaningful content for young 
people and adults. (Brazil, 2013, p. 41) 

 
Prior to the proposals on curricular flexibility, it is necessary to stick to the institutio n of 
continuous learning, in which the neo-subject must develop the ability to configure himself 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       21  
 

according to the demands of the market and the information society (Werthein, 2000). 
Regarding this concept, the DCN (Brazil, 2013, p. 163)5 provides that: 

An immediate consequence of the information society is that survival in this 
environment requires continuous lifelong learning. This new way of being 
requires that the student, in addition to acquiring certain information and 
developing skills to perform certain tasks, must learn to learn, in order to 
continue learning. 
These new demands require a new behavior of teachers, who must cease to be 
transmitters of knowledge and become mediators, facilitators of the acquisition 
of knowledge; They should stimulate research, the production of knowledge and 
group work. This necessary transformation can be translated into the adoption of 
research as a pedagogical principle. 

 
Thus, the Government’s justification for making the curriculum more flexible lies in the 
promotion of autonomy, which understands the old educational model as something limiting to 
the development of knowledge and of the student himself. The intention of promoting “lifelong 
learning” and “keep learning”is justified in the face of the current scenario and the lack of 
financial resources that afflicts many of these young people. An education that enables them to 
enter the labor market in the short term becomes more attractive than preparation for entry into 
a higher education course. By opting for technical-vocational education, supposedly, there 
would be no harm since the ability to “continue learning” would overlap in importance with the 
appropriation and “accumulation” of content itself. 

It is from these assumptions of lifelong learning that the devices of flexibility (curricular 
and individual) and responsibility are intertwined.  Flexibilization is required as the neo-subject 
needs to constantly adapt to the demands that socioeconomic circumstances expose him too 
almost daily. Impelled to self-formation and life choices, this individual takes responsibility for 
himself, which results in the internalization and naturalization of the success or failure of his life 
choices. In other words, the neo-subject under neoliberal rationality is called upon to mana ge 
himself similar to a company, anticipating crises and seeking solutions in order to become 
attractive to the market, which, in turn, becomes his customer. Thus, the relations of forces that 
operate between employer and employee are reversed.  

Theoretically, the individual endowed with a good curriculum would be endowed with the 
ability to choose, being able to select the means of work and the conditions to exercise it.  At 
least that’s what market meritocracy preaches, a seductive discourse that camouflages the 
precariousness of work. 

In this perspective, according to Lima (2017), there is an apology for learning that refers to 
the utilitarianism of knowledge and insertion in the world of work, as announced by Bauman 
(2008). This neoliberal opportunity subordinate’s education by advocating market-oriented 
training. The business discourse, when intertwined with education, aims to produce the 
erroneous sense that an emancipatory education would be based on the capacity to generate 
employment and income, which would supposedly largely solve the social problems of the St ate 
through self-entrepreneurship. This conception manifests itself “(...) based on the basic ideology 
of neoliberalism, which consists of individualism and meritocracy ” (Ribeiro et al., 2020, p. 10). 
Thus, neoliberal rationality presupposes lifelong learn ing ad aeternum as something necessary 

                                                 
5 This guideline, in turn, is recurrent to the LDBEN (Brasil, 1996), section IV of Secondary Education, Article 35, 
item II. 

 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 22 

 

for students to become individual and consolidate their socioeconomic autonomy vis-à-vis 
themselves, society and the State. 

To this end, in the nexus between education and work, knowledge desirable by the 
market and individual skills are articulated that are mobilized within the scope and based on a 
flexible curriculum. Similar to what happens in the company, in which the production of goods 
is consolidated in networks of collaboration according to demand, the school t ends to operate 
under this regime of truth in which it is based on the ability to adapt to the contingencies of the 
world of work to form autonomous and adaptable, flexible and accountable individuals . 

The interest on the part of society, the State and the  market in high school is justified by 
the fact that this is the last stage of basic education; therefore, for “(...) Do you know if  a 
school system as a whole is of good quality? Ask for high school ” (Nosella, 2015, p. 126). 
Moreover, in the 1990s, the priority of education in peripheral and underdeveloped (or 
developing) countries, such as Brazil, prioritized primary education and not secondary 
education. This orientation was based on predilections provided by international organizations 
that aimed to eradicate illiteracy and, consequently, reduce poverty (Casagrande et al., 2019, 
Peroni, 2003). 

With regard to the theme of neoliberalism, the market, and the curriculum, which is also 
present in the DCN (Brazil, 2013), there is clarification about the expan sion and flexibility of 
training as exposed in the BNCC-EM. According to this regulation, the current policies would 
only be putting into practice something that has already been endorsed and endorsed in the 
LDBEN (Brazil, 1996). 

The freedom of diversification and flexibility of curricula is supported by the 
constitutional principles, reaffirmed in the LDB, of the “freedom to learn, teach, 
research and disseminate thought, art and knowledge ” and the “pluralism of ideas 
and pedagogical conceptions” (Federal Constitution 1988, art. 206, Items II and 
III; and art. 3, Items II and III of the LDB).  in addition to what is provided for 
in the organization of national education, in the obligation of education systems 
to ensure “progressive degrees of pedagogical autonomy” to their school units 
(LDB. art. 15). (Brazil, 2013, p. 155) 
 

The flexibility that imputes to individuals the condition of lifelong learners is supported by 
constitutional principles that are ratified in the Federal Constitution of 1988 and in the LDBEN 
(Brazil, 1996). The freedom to learn set out in the above -mentioned document also means the 
guarantee of free will to select the components that will shape the formative itinerary of each 
individual. These guidelines for the high school curriculum an d the right to learning do not 
constitute innovative proposals or proposals that go against what has already been established. It 
should be noted, then, that these regulations only legitimize and amplify certain policies that aim 
to meet the interests of the market. The enactment of these laws and other guidelines has the 
purpose of guiding teachers in the development of their pedagogical plans, contemplating the 
students who would have autonomy to format the curriculum. The articulation of neoliberal 
discourses in the field of curriculum and the constitution of individual learners are continuously 
gestated within the scope of the National Council of Education (CNE), which demonstrates the 
gradual permeation of the Brazilian business community in educational  planning (Girotto, 2018, 
Krawczykii & Martins, 2018). 

In view of this, competitiveness combined with flexi/self-responsibility is notorious 
when observing the current sociopolitical conjuncture from the perspective of neoliberal 
rationality that is not restricted only to the field of education. Even so, it is through the school, 
which due to its capacity for resonance in the social body that the idea of subject and conduct to 
society and the world of work is configured. In short, the interest of the busine ss community in 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       23  
 

the field of education becomes explicit when analyzing the ways in which the high school 
curriculum is crossed by neoliberal principles juxtaposed with large -scale assessment policies. 
Despite the allusion to a training that privileges auth enticity and praises the individual, 
paradoxically, the evaluation procedure established based on large -scale tests aims to measure 
and quantify the student analogous to an algorithm – bioalgorithm. 

As one of the consequences of the impact of neoliberalism  in the field of education, it is 
noted that the influence of the business community in the constitution of curricular educational 
policies is overwhelming. From this perspective, the ways in which the student, the school and 
the teacher are named are re-signified in order to adapt such nomenclatures to neoliberal 
rationality. Thus, we start to 

(...) refer to pupils, students, children and adults as “learners”, as “learning 
supporters” or “learning facilitators” to teachers; as “learning environments”, 
“places for learning” or “learning communities” to schools, and in the 
redesignation of the field of adult education in the sense of a “lifelong 
education”. (Biesta, 2018, pp. 22-23) 

 
As mentioned above and analyzed by Biesta (2018), the growing permeation of economistic 
thinking in educational policies stems from “learning policies” whose opportunity for the 
business community is camouflaged in the intention of improving the quality of teaching and 
fostering student autonomy. The core of this intention lies in forging individuals flexible enough 
to adapt to market contingencies, while naturalizing the precariousness of work that is already 
underway in Brazil, as explained in the course of this article.  

Final Words 

In the development of this study, we opted theoretically and methodologically for 
historical-documentary genealogy due to the need to map how the field of education has been 
systematically crossed by the neoliberal spectrum. The time frame was restricted to the years 
that correspond to the period between 1996 and 2018, while highlighting the contribution of 
political redemocratization (1985) and economic opening (1990) of the country in the process of 
neoliberalization of education. 

According to the analyses developed in the course of this research,  it is evident that 
neoliberalism has been constituted at the global level since the 1980s and systematically entered 
the national policies of education and curriculum in the second half of the 1990s. The interest of 
the business community in the educational field is justified by the school’s ability to disseminate 
knowledge and practices throughout the social fabric. These discourses based on the principles 
of “keep learning”, which has the effect of “learning to learn”, range from young people of 
school age to adults who return to school institutions, universities and technical schools in order 
to complete or continue their studies. “keep learning” marks the beginning of the flexibilization 
of the formative itinerary in curriculum policies, while “learning to learn” is articulated with the 
interests of the market. 

Through a discourse based on meritocracy, the condition of citizenship has been 
relativized, imputing to the individual who works and generates income the right to social 
affiliation (Castel, 2005, Santos, 2010). It is noted that it is within and from education that 
neoliberal rationality re-signifies the individual’s conduct through the device of flexibility 
pertinent to social and work relations (Hardt & Negri, 2012). This process results in the new 
learner – autonomous, flexible and accountable. Consequently, supposedly detached from the 
condition of subordination and from the consciousness of social class, where the employee 
becomes a collaborator or associated with the company. 



The institution of neoliberal rationality in Brazilian educational policies 24 

 

If, on the one hand, the “subjective engagement” produced by the logic of 
productive flexibilization makes workers submit to the ideas of capital when they 
introject the values of the organizational culture and the feeling of being part of 
the “big family” that it intends to ideologically represent, on the other  hand, it 
concretely gives them a feeling of belonging to a collectivity, a feeling that is 
effectively felt in their daily experiences.  however unstable and transitory this 
may turn out to be and however much tensions there may be between the 
workers and the company. In general, this situation creates a scenario in which 
the idea of greater responsibility in the production process can be assimilated in a 
relatively positive way by a large contingent of workers. (Barbosa, 2011, p. 134) 

 
The old labor relations are re-signified in the present, as stated in the excerpt above, the neo -
subject dissociates himself from the condition of employee and assumes the function of 
collaborator or associate according to the perspective of self-entrepreneurship. To this end, the 
individual is similar to a company, operating from innovation and constant updating of their 
knowledge. By mapping the conditions of possibility related to the crossing of neoliberal 
rationality in the field of education, it is evident that this process began in Brazil, from the second 
half of the 1990s, and is consolidated in the present. 

In this way, the learning neo-subject is instituted, which results from the transposition of 
the principle of “keep learning” to “learning to learn”. In order to consolidate lifelong learning, 
it is first necessary to sensitize the individual still in the New High School so that he /she/they is 
familiar with the current scenario configured by neoliberalism. Th us, the student forged under 
the neoliberal paradigm would be endowed with the ability to decide autonomously about his 
formative itinerary and life management, according to the juxtaposition of market aspirations 
and demands. Likewise, there is a tenuity between responsibility and accountability for their life 
choices, which are linked to the business conceptions of flexi/self -responsibility and pedagogical 
governmentality based on market-oriented precepts. 

The enactment of the LDBEN (Brazil, 1996) established the basis for the development 
of a flexible and continuous education in order to adapt the training of the individual learner to 
the needs of the market, without abandoning citizenship and critical awareness. Even so, he 
advocated the education model focused on the world of work and the generation of 
employment and income. The simultaneity of “keep learning” and the formative flexibility in the 
analyzed documents demarcate the imbrication between neoliberal rationality and educational 
and curriculum policies under the principle of “learning to learn”. 

In relation to educational evaluation policies, it is emphasized that when measuring 
education through large-scale tests, the local aspect of each school institution is disregarded, 
community, although, paradoxically, in Brazilian educational documents, the need to observe the 
sociocultural reality of the school and the student in curriculum planning is emphasized. In 
summary, it is through individuation and autonomy that, inferred in the remodeling of the 
school curriculum (high school), the aim is to forge new subjects capable of formatting their 
formative itinerary and managing their life choices. Education, under the neoliberal aegis, aims 
to make the individual more flexible enough to adapt to the econo mic crises, the needs and the 
market contingencies to which neoliberalism exposes him and blames him (blames him for his 
own failure) in the daily life of his predilections. 

Acknowledgments 

This research was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior 
– CAPES/Brasil. 



Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas Vol. 29, No. 150                                       25  
 

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About the Author 
 

Audrei Rodrigo da Conceição Pizolati 
Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – UNISINOS 
E-mail: audreipizolati@gmail.com  
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0656-0995  
Ph.D. in Education (2022) and Master’s degree (2018) from the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos 
Sinos (UNISINOS), with support from the Program of Academic Excellence/Coordination for the 
Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - PROEX/CAPES - full scholarship. Bachelor’s 
degree in history (2013) from the Universidade Luterana do Brasil (ULBRA), with support from the 
University for All Program - ProUni - full scholarship and licensed in Pedagogy from the Centro 
Universitário Claretiano (2023). Currently, a member of the Interinstitutional Research Group in 
Teaching, Pedagogies, and Differences (GIPEDI/CNPq/UNISINOS). Areas of interest: Education 
and History, with an emphasis on Curriculum Policy Studies, Educational Policies, Teaching and 
Learning and Educational Management from the perspective of the History of the Present Time and 
History of Education. Topics of interest: Training for the world of work and income generation, 
neoliberalism, meritocracy, self-flexibility and individual responsibility (flexi/accountability), training 
itineraries, teaching and learning relationships between teacher and student, as well as exercise and 
praxis teaching and student training in Basic Education - Stage: High School. 

 

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