O LEGADO DE PAULO FREIRE PARA AS POLÍTICAS DE CURRÍCULO E PARA O TRABALHO DOCENTE, NO BRASIL TO CITE THIS ARTICLE PLEASE INCLUDE ALL OF THE FOLLOWING DETAILS: Ferraço, Carlos Eduardo (2013).Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life: or about the Creation of Educational Policies in Schools. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 10(1) http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life: or about the Creation of Educational Policies in Schools 1 Carlos Eduardo Ferraço 2 Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil Preface This article aims at questioning (Revel, 2004) the curricula performed (Ferraço, 2008a) in the everyday life of six schools 3 at Vitoria, Espírito Santo, Brazil, which are woven in theory-practice networks (Alves, 2001) 4 the subjects who practice the school routine (Certeau, 1994, 1996), focusing on the relationships between curriculum and culture established by these subjects. This is about the unfolding of our investigations 5 that aim at understanding the different meanings negotiated (Bhabha, 1999) by teachers and students concerning curricular processes going on in our schools. At the same time, these studies rely on a theoretical-methodological-epistemological perspective that can question and understand the multiple space and time determinations of the curriculum, and thus contribute to broadening the possibilities of these actors’ knowledge and action. At that point, the highlights on the discussions about the relationships between curriculum and culture result from our own condition of practicing researchers (Ferraço, 2003, 2008c). It was when we realized that even if we are engaged in projects to combat the cultural discrimination present in schools, both teachers and students keep producing other forms of exclusion and, in the anonymousness of everyday school life, they simultaneously produce survival tactics and strategies (Certeau, 1994, 1996) inspired by micro resistances that ground micro liberties and thus potentialize life. Therefore, our study does not suggest that understanding the networks woven between culture and curriculum simply means to analyze how actors follow current curricular prescriptions and teaching projects based on cultural aspects deriving from these prescriptions. Also, it does not aim at making classroom procedure propositions, but at questioning the theory-practice devised by these actors while weaving their own networks. This is about investigating with school subjects how the art of realizing curricula works and understanding these actors’ styles of acting-thinking, that is, understand their way to make theory from practice taking the political power of these everyday actions into account. Because we believe that every analysis of everyday life is an analysis of political everyday life. Based on the conversations and research procedures adopted, we will deal in this article with the threads of the networks woven by the subjects, assuming that, in our condition of practicing researchers, we are always exposed to our own theoretical- methodological limitations. These threads evoke some narratives-images of 8 th grade Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 39 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci students and teachers which derive from the meaning these actors attribute to the terms culture, school, knowledge, and curriculum, and which allowed us to arrive at the questions guiding our studies. Thus, the narratives-images presented along this text also helped us notice the existence of possibilities of complexification and amplification of action-knowledge networks of the subjects who inhabit schools, in a such a way that their anonymous and sneaky tactics and strategies are potentialized in their everyday school life, which subvert their own attempts to standardize the notion of curriculum and culture prescribed in the curricula. Therefore, instead of trying to quantify, categorize or analyze these narratives- images, we opted for assuming that they are an expression of the diverse meanings negotiated for culture and curriculum in the everyday life processes of curriculum execution. Last but not least, it is worth highlighting that this text attempts to use fragmented writing, which aims at overcoming the causal linearity of beginning, middle and end and intends to approach the idea of conceptual/notional plateaus that are supposedly entangled. In this text-writing-essay we dared to make the fragments of the narrative-images produced by students and teachers go across, interrupt the linear sequence of the text itself, including quotations to cause reading pauses, thinking, and at the same time favor the approach to the complex meanings these subjects attribute to the themes in question in their subjectivity networks. We do not seek to represent what students and teachers know about the themes curriculum, school, culture and knowledge. We intend to cause thinking movements based on the differences and the flow of meaning towards these themes so as to favor understanding that, regardless of how much we wish, we would not be able to grasp these movements. 2 Some questions that have guided our studies Fragment of conversations with pedagogue Alda - To me, working on projects is important so that we can have a more totalizing way to operate contents. - But are they projects per subject or more general projects? - Most times they are projects per subject. - And how many projects are developed per year in this school? - Well, for each subject, along the year, there are about ten projects, but it depends a lot on the teacher. There are teachers who remain traditional. Now, if we include the projects that are for everybody, then we will have about eighteen. - Is there time for all of that? - To be honest, it's rush job. We have to demand from the teachers, otherwise they procrastinate and don’t finish it. But we have the project shows, so they have to meet the deadline anyway. - Don’t think that this notion of working on so many projects keeps compartmentalizing knowledge? - But if you don’t work on projects you’re excluded from the current trend. They consider you traditionalist. Projects are a synonym of progressive school today, and no one wants to be traditionalist. Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 40 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Overall, in our previous study we discussed the image-narratives (Alves, 2001; Manguel, 2001) produced by the practicing subjects of school every day life, which derived from the use (Certeau, 1994, 1996) they make of the official curricular proposal. Thus, taking into account our wish for investigating with (Ferraço, 2003, 2007) the school everyday life, for three years we were able to participate in a number of activities carried out in the study institutions 6 . It was then that we realized the importance the school subjects attribute to the relation between curriculum and culture. The centrality and strength in the dialogues arising between culture and curriculum led us to also focus on theories/authors that allowed us to deepen this discussion based on attempts to establish dialogues between Postcolonial Studies, Everyday life Studies and Curricular Studies in order to question the theory-practices performed in the schools. Finally, aware of the fact that only by problematizing the multiple space and time determinations of the different municipal school settings, we will be able to understand the power of the complexity in the schools. Adopting school routine as investigation setting, we chose the questions that have challenged us: a) maintenance of a curricular concept grounded on ideas of written curricular proposal and cultural project pedagogy; b) emphasis to the ideas of local culture, identity, property, originality, essence, tradition and cultural diversity strained by the processes of differentiation, negotiation, translation, hybridization that take place in the everyday school life; c) Linear association of culture to folklore, characters, events, objects, behavior, customs, aesthetic preferences...; d) maintenance and broadening of tourist curriculum practice based on the calendar of holidays and festivals, highlighting the organization of events such as cultural shows/fairs, beauty contests, etc., which strengthens what we have called “shop window pedagogy”, since it values the products to be displayed to the detriment of negotiation and cultural hybridization processes that take place; e) proposition of educational actions/programs involving themes such as the environment, violence, religion, sexuality, health, racism, family, work, etc., which strengthens the image of culture as a redeemer of social ills, minimizing the discussion around inequality because of the emphasis on the idea of diversity, and also; f) Anonymous and sneaky invention of tactics and strategies that subvert the attempts to standardize the notion of curriculum and culture that is present in the prescriptive curricular texts and, consequently, weave different meanings to the processes, characterizing the dimensions of complexity, political resistance and permanent indetermination/invention of everyday school life. Which words do you associate to culture? Africa. Ancient. Art. Carnaval. Boring. Old thing. Typical food. Black beauty contest. Creativity. Different. Own style. Excursion trip. Exhibit. Facebook. Favela. Cultural fair. Folklore. Funk. Gay. Hanna Montana. Identity. Indian. The Environment. Half-breed. Mix. Hill. Museum. Music. Black people. Our past. Orkut. Religion. Theft. Theater. Tradition. Trash. (Students). Which words do you associate to culture? Ancestors. Crafts. Fine arts. Civilization. Celebrations. Religious conflicts. Belief. Worship. Cultivation. Holidays. From cradle. Roots. Sexual diversity. Folklore. Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 41 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Galleries. Identity. Media. Museums. Works of art. Standard. Popular and classic. Tourist spots. Preservation. Moral principles. Curricular projects. Ethnicities. Social networks. Religion. Tradition. Values. Trips. (Teachers) These initial inferences in terms of how the subjects in the study schools work concerning the relation between curriculum and culture are not expressed in an organized way as described here. In fact, this is always all about theoretical practices that interact in their knowledge networks Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to question the curricular theory-practices featured by subjects in the schools, not to disqualify and/or judge them, but to promote action in the everyday school lives that can favor movements to broaden the knowledge networks. As Alves (2005, p. 3) said, [We understand] that human beings, in their actions and to communicate, are loaded of values that reproduce, transmit, but also create [...]. Thus, in the same process, they apply what is imposed to them by the dominating culture, with technical products made available for consumption and, in return, they create ways to understand and use the technical invention, giving rise to technologies and possibilities of change of both the technical artifacts and the usage techniques. We are going through a moment of discussion about the curriculum in the system. The current proposal cannot meet the school needs today. That is why I that this discussion is necessary to all of us. Even to follow teachers’ work. (Alda, pedagogue). But I think that it does not change much in the end, except for one or two novelties. Government after government, each team has to brand their mark, their logo of curriculum. I still teach the same things, but always contextualizing them. There are no substantial changes. Just the façade, to leave the party's mark. (Rosemary, geography teacher). 3 About some theoretical-political-epistemological assumptions from our study on the relation between culture and curriculum. 3.1 What do we understand by curriculum? Even considering that the official prescriptions are important elements of the curriculum, we question this view so as to take the focus off the idea of curriculum as official document and thus broaden it with the notion of curriculum as knowledge-action networks woven and shard in the school routines. What do you hate at school? Not being allowed to wear a cap or use a cell phone. Not being allowed to date and kiss. Building depredation. Fights. The lunch. Being sent to the coordination office. Having my parents called to school. Having to line up and sing the national anthem. Not being allowed to leave earlier if a teacher misses class. Having to wear a uniform. Ugly and poor people. Students from slums. Protestant students and teachers. Having to listen to preaching and moral lessons at school. (Students). What do you like most at school? Friends. No class. Mess. Restroom. Kissing. Cafeteria. Food. Coordinator’s advice. Fun. Physical education. Sports. Studying. Making mess. Student’s Guild. Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 42 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci End time. Computing. English. Class breaks. Playing soccer. Lab. Snacking. Reading. Dating. I like nothing. Yard. Trips. Jokes during the classes. Homework. The projects. Flirting. Teachers. Lunch break. Fans. (Students). In this regard, Alves et al. (2002) advocate that, by participating in the everyday curricular experience, even if supposedly following pre-established curricular material, teachers and students weave practical alternatives with the threads that they are provided by the networks they are part of, in and out of school. Therefore, we can say that there are many curricula operating in school, despite the different homogenizing mechanisms. Unfortunately, much of our curricular proposals have not been able to incorporate these experiences. They intend to hover over the daily practice activities of the subjects who make up the school. Inverting the axis in this process means to understand the curricular weaving as a process to give rise to alternatives built in the everyday life and that already are going on (Alves et al, 2002, p. 34). We have several projects approaching the question of students’ culture. Especially now that including African culture in curriculum is mandatory. For example, the black beauty contest has attracted our attention in the sense of valuing black students’ beauty. Another thing is the culture fair, in which each class is responsible for presenting things that are typical of a county or state, such as crafts, drinks, typical foods, dances, typical clothes, and traditions, ... Once in a while there is some discussion among them when something is typical of two places. Then I say, "So, it's not typical". (Martha, pedagogue). 3.2 About complexity, cultural hybridization and the need of overcoming the dichotomy of “prescribed curriculum” vs. “experienced curriculum”. The research questions proposed also lead to overcoming the dichotomy between prescribed and experienced curricula because, in order to understand the cultural processes carried out in the weaving of everyday life networks, we make use of hybridization (Bhabha, 1998) and complexity (Morin, 1996, 2002) ideas, which break through any possibility of analysis based on dichotomous and excluding polarizations. By analyzing the questions posed by the complexity paradigm, Morin (2002) warns us about the need of understanding complexity as a problem, a challenge, not a solution, a definite answer to facing these questions. By trying to characterize complexity, the author advises us that, at first glance, it is what is not simple. The ambition of complexity is accounting for the shattered interactions caused by the cuts between subjects, between cognitive categories and types of knowledge. In other words, everything that is intersected to form a complexity unit, but the unit "complexus" does not destroy the variety and diversity of the complexities that wove it (MORIN, 1996, p. 176). I believe that content remains important. Otherwise, what are we going to teach? You must have goals to teach a class. You have to plan your work and adapt the curriculum to what is happening in the world. Those who wrote the curriculum wrote it in another context, and if do not adapt it, there is no way to work. (Marcia, Portuguese teacher). Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 43 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Here in this school we work on cultural aspects in the curriculum without worrying about whether it concerns local or general culture. Especially because I often wonder about these we call local and general culture. To me, this separation does not make much sense, at least not nowadays. Students are connected to the world all the time and, consequently, the separation between local and general is difficult to be accepted. (Rosa, Sciences teacher). Therefore, it is not possible to assume a contraposition between “official curricular prescriptions” and “performed curricula”. In fact, we understand that, in the everyday school life, networked curricula are expressed as powerful possibilities of broadening and/or questioning the discursive field of curriculum, including the official proposals, among other determinants interwoven in these networks. 3.3 About curriculum policies and research on everyday school life Another assumption we make in this everyday life study regards the conclusion that the curricular theory-practices invented by the practicing subjects, besides being hybrid, negotiated in the complex everyday life knowledge-action networks are also curriculum policies. This attitude has made us search for a more complex notion of policy than the one systematized by government documents. Our construction and understanding of what reality is necessarily take place in a political dimension. All is a result of discursive agreements, all is political. The human being is not a biological, social economic, psychological and political being, that is, there is not a political dimension “beside” the other dimensions. Politics is not an extra dimension, unless politics constantly crosses the other dimensions. This happens in a way that event the access we have to ourselves is determined by politics. I cannot be a social being without being a political individual; I cannot be an ethical individual, without being a political individual; I cannot be an epistemological individual [...] being a political individual. (Veiga- Neto, 1996, p.170) Understanding the everyday curricular theoretical-practices as curriculum policies does not only mean to question some of the dichotomies inherited by education of modern science hegemonic discourse but, above all, it means to suspect every and any proposal to make practice become political. In other words, it means to alert us for the idea (so present in schools) that people need to be politically “aware”. This attitude many times denies the fact that, regardless of our condition, options, or cultural choices, we are always political beings. In order to begin, we need to say that there is no understanding about the existence of "political practices" among the countless groups that develop studies on everyday life [...] once we understand that politics is practice, that is, actions by particular political groups about particular questions explicitly aiming at changing something that exists in a field of human expression. Simply put, we necessarily see politics as collective practices within a field in which there is always struggle between different positions, even opposing positions. This way, we do not see only the most visible actions as “political”. (Alves, 2010, p. 49). Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 44 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 3.4 About possible meeting between postcolonial studies, curricular studies and research about school routines. Which topics should be taught in schools? Beauty. Racecars. Cinema. Dance. Drugs. Spanish. Facebook. Bullying. College. Pregnancy. Computing. Internet. Fashion. Motorcycling. MSN. Music. Dating. Swimming. Soap operas. Orkut. Pornography. Prejudice. Prevention. Religion. Sex. Soccer teams. Twitter. College Entrance examination (Vestibular) (Students). Again Alves (2005) helps us in this argumentation, when considering the importance of thinking about the relation between curricular and cultural questions: Are there differences between what is produced in schools (such as knowledge) and what is produced outside schools, such as in sciences? Which possibilities of inter-influences are placed between what is developed by schools and what is woven in the space-time outside them? In order to find answers to these questions, Alves (2005) resorts to Lopes (1999, p. 222-223) when he advocates that: It is questionable to set a knowledge and cultural hierarchy, as well as to conceive a unit in the cultural plurality. Admitting cultural plurality is admitting not only plurality and discontinuity of reason, but also admitting the division of labor in the society of classes. It means conceiving dominating and dominated cultures as an ambiguous and contradictory blend of repression and liberation, reproduction and resistance. In my opinion, working on local culture is important for students to raise their self- esteem, to feel recognized in their cultural manifestation. For example, in this school many students live with Congo manifestation, and this needs to be admitted as a theme, curricular content. (Ana, Math teacher). Thus, the interaction between everyday curricular knowledge and cultures experiences by subjects who practice this routine pushes us to think about curriculum beyond official texts, involving them in the domains of knowledge-action networks of school routines, woven within a field of cultural meaning. Since it is constitute in networked fields of signification, the curriculum has a dimension of cultural process that cannot be disregarded and that is performed within particular social, historical, cultural and economic contexts that penetrate one another. Culture is a field of production of meanings in which different social groups, located in different positions of power, fight for imposing their meanings to the broader society. Culture is, in this concept, a contested terrain of signification. (Silva, 1999, p. 133-134). In the interaction and confluence of these contexts, we will try to place everyday school life as culture’s in-between (Bhabha, 1998), and question the theoretical- epistemological-methodological possibilities that are created in everyday networks of use, negotiation, hybridization and translation between cultures, expressing different cultural Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 45 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci struggles. According to Bhabha (1998), the terms of cultural struggle, whether by antagonism or by affiliation, are performatively produced, and the social interaction of difference, from the perspective of minorities, is a complex ongoing negotiation. Negotiation here means process, without necessarily having to reach a consensus. What are you curious about but you are afraid to ask? What is it like to have a child? How was my mother’s first time? Does giving birth hurt? Can lesbians have children? Does losing virginity hurt? Why are there lesbians and gays in this school? Why do men become gay? Why do older men like sex with younger girls? Why can't we marry more than one person? Why do we have to marry virgin? How big are the teacher’s breasts? (Students). As everyday life researchers, this throws us at multiple networks of ephemeral negotiations, permeated by ambiguity, ambivalence of possibilities that are presented in the interstices, but that are not fixed or unchangeable. Complementing this idea, we have in Bhabha (1998, p. 248) the proposal of thinking culture as space of enunciation: If culture as epistemology is concentrated in function and intention, then culture as enunciation is concentrated in signification [...] Enunciation is a more dialogical process that attempts to trace displacements and realignments that result from antagonisms and cultural articulations — subverting reason of hegemonic moments and replacing with hybrid, alternative spaces of cultural negotiation. According to Bhabha (1998) the passage from cultural as epistemological object to the idea of culture as a space of enunciation opens possibilities of other times of cultural signification, establishing a process through which the subjects who practice the everyday life are assumed as protagonists of their story and experience. Thus, the different types of enunciation and cultural translations in the use of official curricular prescriptions produce power of invention in schools and, consequently, other uses-discourses of/about curriculum among multiple space-time of cultural enunciation and hybridization. In this discussion it is important to recognize that hybrid for Bhabha (1998) is not a synthesis that solves a conflict between original and essential opposites by blending them. Thus, cultural hybridity is overlapping (not only syncretism), such as a poorly made copy, a dissimulation, a (partial) similarity that is not similitude, a double inscription, less than one and the double. Macedo (2004), based on the notion hybridity, defends the idea of thinking curriculum as border space-time in which hybrid cultures are produced by negotiated between the many traditions that constitute it. When thinking about difference in the curriculum, the author considers the following: Recently, it has been highlighted [...] in education in education the notion of hybridity, which could be defined, in a very simple way, as a blend [...] that transforms difference in the same, but that also allows the same to be seen as difference. It is about the notion that deals with difference — as well as with apparent homogeneity — and disturbs both the borders between self and other and the idea of self and other [...] I argue that curriculum as hybrid needs to be thought as border and ambivalence space-time that get along with different cultural traditions (Macedo, 2004, p. 15-16). Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 46 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Why do come to school? Sometimes I ask myself this question. To make friends. To play ball. To play. To talk. Not to hear shit from my mom. To take physical education classes and have lunch. To have fun. Not to stay home doing nothing. To be able to get a job. To fuss around. To get things. Because I have to. I want to have a better future. (Students). Thus, based on Bhabha (1998), we seek to deny a view of school that thinks as imaginary museum of several cultures, as if one could collect and appreciate these cultures through holidays, characters, traditions or any other attempt of curricular prescription grounded on a multicultural classic perspective. Coherent to this view, Silva (1999, p. 130) claims that: In these superficial forms seen as multicultural, the Other is "visited" from a perspective that could be called "tourist's perspective", which stimulates a superficial and voyeuristic approach of foreign cultures. A postcolonial perspective would question the superficially multicultural experiences stimulated in the so-called “commemorative dates” [demanding] a multicultural curriculum that does not separate questions of knowledge, culture and aesthetics from questions of power, politics and interpretation. It fundamentally calls for a decolonized curriculum. The superficial forms of multiculturalism created by Silva (1999) are also pointed out by Bhabha (Rutherford, 1996) when he concludes that multiculturalism represented an attempt to respond to and, at the same time, control the dynamic process of articulation of cultural difference, administering the consensus based on a norm that propagates cultural diversity. What are you curious about but you are afraid to ask? Why is there only the Day of Black Consciousness but not a day of White, Indian, Asian consciousness? Why are there white people with curly hair? Why don't black boys like to date black girls? Why are the Queens of the Spring white girls? What does my sister I never look like? Does my father still love after having abandoned me? Why do some mothers abandon their children? (Students). 4 About the theoretical-methodological paths: research on everyday life... 4.1 About the use of conversation in action-thinking with the performing subjects during the research process: emphasizing relationships During this discussion, it is necessary to affirm that the previous questions evoke some notions that must be minimally pointed out. The first point is on the use we make of conversational practices with educators and students as attempts to approach and mobilize the relationships lived by such subjects in schools. In other words, it is an attempt to think with them, instead of thinking about them. Such attitude of thinking with the other has been leading us to the clue left by Certeau (1994, 1996), in terms of the use he used to make of conversations in his research works. When Giard (1996) refers to that use, he emphasizes his concern to try to establish outstanding empathy while talking to ordinary subjects, without paying directive attention to them. Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 47 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci The rhetoric of ordinary conversations are transforming practices of ‘word- situations’, of verbal productions where the speaking positions intercross into an oral network that is not owned by any individual. They will be communications of one piece of interaction that will not belong to anyone. The conversation is a provisory and collective effect of competences in the art of manipulating ‘commonplace’ and playing with the inevitability of the events to make them homey. (Certeau, 1994, p.50). During the research, our attempts to approach the subjects privilege the meetings, the relations, whatever goes on between them-us. The attention is directed to the practices that are shared, attempting to decharacterize an approach that is centered in the individual. Assessing such practices does not mean going back to the individuals. During three centuries, the social atomism has worked as a historical line for analyzing a society that presupposes that individual is an elementary unity, and the individual would make groups to which they could always be reduced to [...]. On one hand, the analysis previously shows that the relation (always social) determines its terms, not the opposite, and every individuality is a place where some incoherent pluralism (and many times contradictory) of their relational determination occurs. On the other hand, above all, the matter refers to modes of operation, or action plans, and does not refer directly to the subject that is its author or vehicle. (Certeau, 1994, p.37) 4.2 About the limits of our research instruments and categories of analysis, and the need to go deeper in the complexity of school routines. In our research proposal, we have been exercised the need to go deeper in school routines, in order to discuss the processes of translation, negotiation and use, from where the subjects create narrative-images that help us understand the approximation between culture and curriculum in their practical-theories. In that sense, Alves (1998b,p.2)has the following position about the possibility of going deeper in routines: “[...] ‘"[...] willing to know better, in respect to what Lefèbvre calls ‘the humble reason of routine’, demands from the researcher dedicated to it, availability to feel the world, not only just gazing at it , proudly, from up high." Then, we dive with all senses alert in the school routines looking for the narrative- images produced in between the routine networks and the translations, negotiations and uses made from the official curricular proposal. As mentioned before, those narrative- images are full of cultural, social and economic that is neither immovable, nor permanent. However, they help us understand what Certeau (1996) calls “ordinary culture” and, as a consequence, and the limits in his analysis. The ordinary culture hides a fundamental diversity of situations, interests and contexts, under a supposedly repetition of objects that feed it [...]. We barely know the kinds of operations, registers and operations on the table of ordinary practices, because our assessment instruments [...] have been constituted for other objects and other purposes [...]. Our categories of knowledge are still very rustic and our analysis models are too elaborated so as to let us imagine the amazing inventive Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 48 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci abundance of routine practices. Have been constituted for other objects and other purposes [...]. Thus, a powerful alternative that we have found for realizing our research with routines has to do to the movements proposed by Alves (2001). As defended by the author: There are four aspects that I find necessary to discuss in order to start understanding such complexity [...]. It is needed to dive with all the senses alert in the topic I wish to study about [...] I have been calling this movement feeling of the world [...] Understanding that the group of theories [...] That we have inherited from modernity [...] Is not only support and guidance to the route to be trailed, but, more and more, limitation to whatever must be weaved. In order to name such process, I am using the idea of turning upside down [...]. The third of them, by incorporating the notion of complexity, will demand some expansion from what we understand as source, and discussion about the ways of dealing with diversity [...] I believe I can call this movement “drinking from every fountain” Finally, [...] Assuming that, in order to communicate new concerns [...] it is imperative to write in a new way [...] maybe, such movement could be called ‘narrating life and making science literary’. (Alves, 2001, p.14-16) In later texts, Alves (2005) broadens her considerations about the proposal by asking: Why do not we search for working a fifth movement that maybe could be named, in honor of Nietzsche and Foucault, Ecce homo, or even Ecce femina, that would be more appropriate to the routine of our schools? Maybe because I am not as wise as the authors mentioned before, or for being a woman in a society in which men are supposed to have ideas, or even, because I leave my footprints in lands that are fairly known, hanging around space-times still hardly revealed What really matters in research in/from/with routines are the people, the performers, as named by Certeau (1996) because they are seen in action, all the time (Alves, 2005, p.17). Why do people have different skin colors? Due to the culture. In order for prejudice to exist. Miscegenation. Because of genetics. Because of their nationality. Because of the black people. They stain white color. Because the skin color changes according to the amount of melanin in our body. Because God created it in this way. Because if everyone were the same, life wouldn´t be good. (Students). From the movements proposed by Alves (2001), working with narratives associated to images (narrative-images or image-narratives) has be showing, in our research, extremely powerful as a less structured and formal possibility to understand curricular processes that happen in schools. Therefore, even if we consider the power of prescriptive curricular determinisms that intend to frame school life nowadays, it is necessary to investigate the multiplicity of worlds that coexist in them. It demands another research attitude, by diving in the universes of small talks, images and hubbubs that tell us about the Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 49 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci movement of a society that, by talking, is constituting and reinventing itself on a daily basis. What are you curious about but you are afraid to ask? Why are you doing research with such questions? Is anybody really going to read it? Why would somebody do it? What is the use of this questionnaire? Do you really think someone is asking questions that are really secret? Are you going to answer? If yes, is the salary good? I have no questions. My life is an open book. I have no curiosity. Everything I want to know about can be answered by Google. (Students). Notes 1 A version of this article was presented at The Fourth World Curriculum Studies Conference - IV IAACS in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2012). 2 ferraco@uol.com.br 3 The study schools are located in the Municipality of Vitoria, State of Espírito Santo, Brazil. 4 Written connecting words inspired by Nilda Alves in an attempt to overcome the dichotomies inherited from modernity’s hegemonic discourse and, at the same time, allow this connection to produce other meanings. 5 “Curricula performed in the everyday life of public schools of the early elementary school grades” funded by CNPq. 6 Our participation in the everyday life of the six schools was carried out in a systematic way at different moments and in different settings such as weekly studies, classes, informal activities, continuing education, etc. References Alves, N. (2010). Redes educativas ‘dentrofora’ das escolas, exemplificadas pela formação de professores. In: DALBEN, Ângela; DINIZ, Júlio; LEAL, Leiva; SANTOS; Lucíola (Org.). Convergências e tensões no campo da formação e do trabalho docente. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, p. 49-66. Alves, N. (2005). Artefatos tecnológicos relacionados à imagem e ao som na expressão da cultura de afro-brasileiros e seu “uso” em processos curriculares de formação de professoras na educação superior: o caso do curso de Pedagogia da UERJ/Campus Maracanã. Projeto incorporado ao PROCIÊNCIA, agosto de 2005. Alves, N. (2001). Decifrando o pergaminho: o cotidiano das escolas nas lógicas das redes cotidianas. In: OLIVEIRA, Inês Barbosa de; ALVES, Nilda (Org.). Pesquisa no/do cotidiano das escolas: sobre redes de saberes. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A, p. 13-38. Alves, N. (1998a). Trajetórias e redes na formação de professores. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A. Alves, N. (1998b). O espaço escolar e suas marcas. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A. mailto:ferraco@uol.com.br Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 50 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci Alves, N. (2002). Criar currículo no cotidiano. São Paulo: Cortez. Alves, N. & Garcia, R. L. (2002). A necessidade de orientação coletiva nos estudos sobre o cotidiano: duas experiências. In: Bianchetti, L. & Machado, A. M. N. (Eds.). A bússola do escrever: desafios e estratégias na orientação de teses e dissertações. São Paulo: Cortez, p. 255-296. Bhabha, H. (1998). O local da cultura. Belo Horizonte: UFMG. Candau, V. (2005). Sociedade multicultural e educação: tensões e desafios. In: CANDAU, V. Cultura(s) e educação: entre o crítico e o pós-crítico. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A, p. 15-37. Certeau, M. (1996). A invenção do cotidiano 2: morar, cozinhar. Petrópolis: Vozes. Certeau, M. (Ed.) (1994). A invenção do cotidiano: as artes de fazer. Petrópolis: Vozes. Ferraço, C. E. (Ed.) (2011). Currículo e educação básica: por entre redes de conhecimentos, imagens, narrativas, experiências e devires. Rio de Janeiro, Rovelle. Ferraço, C. E. (Ed.) (2008a). Cotidiano escolar, formação de professores(as) e currículo. São Paulo: Cortez. Ferraço, C. E.; PEREZ, C. L. V. & OLIVEIRA, I. B. (eds.) (2008b). Aprendizagens cotidianas com a pesquisa: novas reflexões em pesquisa no/do/com os cotidianos das escolas. Rio de Janeiro: DP et Alii. Ferraço, C. E. (2009). Currículos realizados nos cotidianos de escolas públicas das séries iniciais do ensino fundamental: sobre narrativas e imagens produzidas com os usos, traduções e negociações como potência para a ampliação das redes de conhecimentos dos sujeitos praticantes. Projeto incorporado ao CNPq, agosto de 2009. Ferraço, C. E. (2008c). Ensaio de uma metodologia efêmera: ou sobre as várias maneiras de se sentir e inventar o cotidiano escolar. In: OLIVEIRA, I. B.& ALVES, N. (Eds.). Pesquisa no/do cotidiano das escolas: sobre redes de saberes. 2. ed. Rio de Janeiro: DP et Alii. 2008c. p. 101-117. Ferraço, C. E. (2008d). Currículos e conhecimentos em rede. In: ALVES, N. & GARCIA, R. L. (Eds.). O sentido da escola. Rio de Janeiro: DP et Alii, p. 101-124. Ferraço, C. E. (2007). Pesquisa com o cotidiano. Educação & Sociedade: Revista de Ciência da Educação, Centro de Estudos Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, v. 28, n. 98. p. 73-95, jan./abr.. Ferraço, C. E. (2003). Eu, caçador de mim. In: GARCIA, R. L. (Ed.). Método: pesquisa com o cotidiano. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A, p. 157-175. Giard, L. (1996). Momentos e lugares. In: CERTEAU, M. A invenção do cotidiano 2: morar, cozinhar. Petrópolis: Vozes. Gros, F. (2004). Foucault: a coragem da verdade. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial. Guimarães, C. (1977). Imagens da memória: entre o legível e o visível. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG. Guimarães, F. (2006). O ordinário e o extraordinário das narrativas. In: GUIMARÃES, C. & FRANÇA, V. (Eds.). Na mídia, na rua: narrativas do cotidiano. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, p. 8-17. Lopes, A. R. C. (1999). Conhecimento escolar: ciência e cotidiano. Rio de Janeiro: Eduerj. Macedo, E. (2004). Currículo e hibridismo: para politizar o currículo como cultura. Revista Educação em Foco, Juiz de Fora, v. 9, n. 1, p.13-30. Mangel, A. (2001). Lendo imagens: uma História de Amor e ódio. São Paulo: Companhia Ferraço. Curriculum, Culture and Investigation on Everyday Life 51 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry10(1.) 2013http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci das Letras. Morin, E. (1996). Ciência com consciência. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil. Morin, E. (2002). A religação dos saberes: o desafio do século XXI. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil. Oliveira, I. B. (2003). Currículos praticados: entre a regulação e a emancipação. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A. Pacheco, J. A. (2005). Escritos curriculares. São Paulo: Cortez. Revel, J. (2004). O pensamento vertical: uma ética da problematização. In: GROS, F. (Org.). Foucault: a coragem da verdade. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial. Rutherford, J. (1996). O terceiro espaço: uma entrevista com Homi Bhabha. Revista do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional, Campinas, v.1, n. 24, p. 34-41. Prefeitura Municipal de Vitória. Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Diretrizes curriculares para o ensino fundamental. http://www.vitoria.es.gov.br/seme.php?pagina=diret_ensino_fundamental>. Last Access: 15.4. 2010. Silva, T. T.(1999). Documentos de identidade: uma introdução às teorias do currículo. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica. Veiga-Neto, A. (1996). A didática e as experiências de sala de aula: uma visão pós- estruturalista. Educação & Realidade. Porto Alegre: Faculdade de Educação/UFRGS, v.21, n.2, p.161-175, Jul/Dec. Submitted: June, 11th, 2013 Approved: July, 26th, 2013 http://www.vitoria.es.gov.br/seme.php?pagina=diret_ensino_fundamental