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: Borges, Veronica ; Cunha, Viviane P.; Craveiro, Clarissa (2019). Curricular centralization policy in Brazil: A discursive perspective on academic researches. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 p. 23-37 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil: A Discursive Perspective on Academic Researches Veronica Borges1, Viviane Peixoto Cunha2 State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Clarissa Craveiro 3 Federal Fluminense University, Brazil Introduction The National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC) is the current curricular centralization policy in force in Brazil.4 This policy is being constituted in the flow of articulations derived from different educational demands in different levels (international, national and local) and in different spaces (governmental, academic, business, among others). Its document was approved by the CNE (National Council of Education) in 20175 and is the result of negotiations signed around a provisionally hegemonic sense of curriculum. It is a curricular policy of a normative nature, whose logic operates with the organic and progressive selection of minimum contents; with a centralized evaluation of accountability performance and a supposedly mobilizing discourse around educational equity (the right of access and development of learning for all students and in all stages and modalities of Basic Education)6. As pointed out by Jason Beech (2009), the process of internationalizing has grown stronger since the 1980s, notably due to the significant influence from international organizations such as UNESCO, the World Bank and OECD in Latin America. Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1984) was deeply dependent on international organizations - the World Bank being the best example of it - and, not by chance, added to that, the country witnessed a strong sense of nationalism. Regarding educational policies, we had technocratic reforms and, as far as curricular policies are concerned, these reforms could also be felt in the academic production about curriculum that argues that values such as national and common character should be valued. It is remarkable how Mcdonaldization´s traces (Ritzer, 2004) in the global society are spreading through our local reality. Jomtien's declaration - Education for All - in 1990 brings out this proposal´s traces. In its core is the idea of decentralizing the management of education, but, paradoxically, it also contributes to the ideology of a centralized curriculum in its defense of an education common to all. The democratic aspect, from an egalitarian distribution point of view, is strengthened. However, when we analyze the same arguments in favor of a decentralized curriculum, which are also connected to the idea of efficiency, it becomes clear that there is a departure from democratic positions7. The effect in the curricular field is noticed on the demands signed in international agreements that tension local propositions in order to https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 24 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index incorporate the notions of a decentralizing management, a centralizing curriculum and the so- called performativity culture8. More clearly, we can refer to the Document presented by UNESCO - International Bureau of Education / IBE (2017)9 in the context of the Education Agenda 203010. According to the Document, the globally shared curricular vision should promote a unity of purpose, and a sense of long-term direction among those who are somehow responsible for developing or monitoring the curriculum. They argue that although there are divergent views on certain curricular issues that will undoubtedly and understandably exist across the education sector, all must share a common belief and understanding of how the curriculum can shape the future of individuals, society, and the nation itself. To sum up - the Document reaffirms this notion, while we seek to problematize it "curriculum as a pillar and a platform to the fulfillment of learning opportunities to all"; "curriculum as a basis for successful educational reforms, to ensure the achievement of high quality learning outcomes"; "curriculum as an opportunity to provide essential knowledge, skills and competences" (UNESCO, 2017). Although international influences on curricular production are not recent in the Brazilian context, the creation of the Common Curriculum Base Movement11 were the cornerstone, especially from 2013 on, for trigger to start developing partnerships more orderly aiming the BNCC production and implementation (Macedo 2014, 2015). Among others, the following international references have received emphasis by this movement: The Common Core Experience12; Consulting conducted by the Curriculum Foundation13; The Use of Benchmarking14. These references validate a curriculum model which displays objectivity marks (explicit uniform and rigorous standards - as a support for "good decisions" by teachers and managers); marks of determinism (value of standards as a "powerful lever" for improving all aspects of the education system); normativity marks (alignment of assessments; the making of new instructional materials; provision of "adequate" training to teachers); marks of the universalization of the common (appreciation of careful planning to support the successful implementation of new standards); scientification marks (consideration of explicit, uniform and rigorous standards as a strategy to expand educational opportunities for all Brazilian students, especially among disadvantaged groups). By restoring pedagogical discourse, we seize the discursive relations that converge towards the comprehension of a curriculum policy conception for global economic competitiveness. Although they are emphasized and implemented in different ways in local circumstances, the proposals of common national curricula have sought to promote universal values giving more visibility to alternatives considered inadequate from the neoliberal pragmatism point of view. The movement of the Post-graduation National Association on Educational Research (ANPEd) states – There is a curriculum already: the one we build in school, for example, "antagonizes the extensive discursive chain of a pro-centrality curriculum" (Lopes, 2018, p. 158). Lopes (2018) also emphasizes that from the perspective shared within these groups, the discursive practices around curricular centralization cannot be understood outside the current political context, which act as territories for such a dispute. The signifiers "there is a curriculum already" and BNCC do not necessarily establish a relationship between each other, that is, no essence is capable of guaranteeing in itself the meanings of these signifiers. Likewise, if we take the articulation in support of the BNCC as a curricular policy on federal level, it is worth mentioning that this also expresses discursive disputes much more diverse and with a national and even international scope. The subjects and their discourses are formed in hegemonic processes – they subjectivate and are subjectivated discursively - in an attempt to fix meanings. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 25 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Several researches in the field of Brazilians curricular policies (Macedo, 2014; Cury, 2014; Lopes, 2015; Pereira & Albino, 2015; Sussekind, 2014) and in other countries (Price, 2014; Ravitch, 2011; Taubman, 2009) carry marks of modernity, such as objectivism, determinism and essentialism. Through them, we intend to explore the extent to which different authors and their inscriptions in the field of discursivity also bear marks of the pedagogical discourse. We consider this field, on one hand, strongly represented by instrumental discourse (but not entirely). The curricular documents, in this perspective, refer to the processes that portray the underlying structure of social relations and social institutions. Such thought understands education as part and, to some extent, the product of the existing society, meaning that its task, in a broad level, is to prepare all individuals to live in society in a movement to maintain the status quo. Such propaedeutic demand feeds the discourses in this sense, which multiply exponentially in the space-times that praise the curricular centralization. In Education, as seen by the market language, is recurring the notion that the tasks of education is teaching one to read, write and learn the four basic mathematical operations in order to find a job. On the other hand, there are resisting forces against the normative propositions represented by the critical character, which claims that the dispute for an ideal of emancipatory education is capable of promoting social transformation. Here, explored curricular thinking functions in a super-organized position for society, with plans, contents, and methods that are articulated to free citizens from existing and oppressive social norms and values. The social function of education, then, is to develop a curricular proposal that is capable of more than merely guaranteeing a set of minimum contents. Aiming to build a fair and equal society, the moto of such an approach implies designing curricular policies that can guarantee a critical and emancipated formation which can overcome the current neoliberal perspective that reconfigures the labor relations of citizens. Some supporters of such a proposition do not question the curricular centralization policy. On the contrary, they argue that the curricular proposal must be common and that the contents must be selected so that everybody could have access to the "knowledge of the powerful." We intend to answer the following questions: How has the policy of curricular centralization been approached by discursive researches? How does the discursive perspective help us to challenge the current hegemonic model of curricular policy without establishing a normative closure? In the research process we operate with empirical material (texts / discourses) as registration means. They are scattered meanings carried through discursive formations and that are "read", interpreted contextually (Lopes, 2018). We chose to gather some articles about the curricular centralization theme and BNCC between (2014-2018)15. We selected part of the academic production of the research group on curricular policies of the Post-Graduation Program of the University of Rio de Janeiro (Proped-UERJ), which has been developed around a discursive approach. In general, they propose to operate with the reactivation and deconstruction of sedimented representations and presented as the hegemonic discourse of curricular policy. As pointed out by Howarth (2005), working with the Theory of Discourse implies (dis)articulating the elements of the analyzed reality, in the most consistent way for the scientific community and for the social actors themselves, fulfilling the role of criticism and / or of support of discourses that present themselves in the hegemonic field of the social. Not establishing a normativity that might validate an ideal curriculum to be produced, we consider that the relevance of this text lies in the possibility of setting the academic discursive practices that focus on curricular centralization into motion. We hope that, by https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 26 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index revisiting the hegemonic discursive formations from a new perspective, novel ways of thinking about curriculum could gain visibility. We emphasize the suspicious condition of curricular centralization policies, such as the BNCC, as well as the radical political condition that aims to challenge it. In the first part of the text, we summarize some academic contributions (2014-2018) that sought to recover articulated demands in the policy of curricular centralization of Brazilian education, addressing, mainly, the discursive similarities that, by disruptive relations, tend to cover a conception of curriculum policy for global economic competitiveness and for normative prescriptions of a common language. Our objective is to gather research that helps us to think critically about the subject without establishing a normative closure, but rather, opening up possibilities for new approaches. Next, we discuss the radical political condition in the process of challenging the centralized curricular production through a discursive approach. Lastly, we made some final comments. Academic Production (research) with a discursive approach (2014-2018) Since the early 1990s16, the field of curriculum has gradually become more open to the poststructural perspective, as a theoretical-methodological framework of research. Despite this, there is still much to be debated regarding the notions discussed in the studies, as well as the proposals. The texts gathered in this section present a "reading" of the social aspect from a discursive construction point of view, in order to destabilizing naturalized meanings in the curricular field. We expect that, by presenting the aspects activated during the analysis of curricular centralization with a discursive approach, other paths become feasible. How, then, has the policy of curricular centralization been addressed in research that operates with a discursive approach? As we shall see below, the researches that operate with a discursive approach have attempted to shed light on different ways of thinking curricular discussion, for example, discussions about the meanings attributed to the signifiers "differences", citizen's rights, quality in education and also aspects treated so far as "unquestionable" meanings such as: knowledge, teacher professionalization, teacher assessment. It is worth highlighting the academic-political strategic option of the researches listed below, following the laclaunian discursive approach, postulating that the centering of the politics when structuring society is an essential aspect of this approach. Incorporating the centering of the politics undermines the very foundations of the stabilized educational project - in this case, curricular centralization - and raise important questions about the meaning of educational purposes. Differentiated emphasis on notions as context; subjectivation; difference; fundamentals; hegemony; contingency; precariousness; articulations; normativity; among others, favor theoretical elements that blame, but for that very reason empower, the social actors (outside of the performance metrics), in the different social contexts, among them the practice of schools (Laclau, Mouffe, 2015, p.25). Emphasis on the radical contextualization of curricular policy Lopes (2016) contributes by signaling that, in the discursive approach, policies "are always sedimented versions of interpretations of interpretations" (p.9). When referring to Stephen Ball's Theory of Enactment, she argues that meanings are radically contextual. It emphasizes that the actions of power, in all contexts, that produce a center in meaning and close the discursive structure, even if precariously and contingently. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 27 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index In the same direction, inspired by the Derrida and laclaunian thoughts, Costa and Lopes (2018) contribute to the idea of context in its deconstructionist power within curricular studies, that is, meaning by a space that cannot be "saturated by any knowledge or calculations, or be controlled in their meaning "(p.5). They argue that a structural view of context (contexts previously conceived) tends to understand knowledge as structuring of practice, aiming the control of the other. Thus, unforeseen and unique possibilities of being and deciding are restricted to a form of being (and deciding), projected by some to everyone else and supposedly necessary to society. Cunha (2015) also contributes to the theme by bringing to surface concealed elements of complex language games or power relations in the educational field in the presentation of an essential curricular unit (a basis). By articulating the discursive approach with Derrida's notion on interpretive context, She points to the interdiction of the sign as an impossibility of accessing the truth, the essence, to what can be assumed as a basis. She emphasizes the contexts of interpretation as open fields which make meanings ruin. Through difference Macedo and Ranniery (2018) propose an understanding of public policies in curriculum as intersubjective networks multiply located. They problematize who is the public being addressed in recent curriculum policies: are they being addressed as "all" or as a group of abstract, universal, interchangeable and similar subjects? They propose thinking the public as an idea committed to the contingency, the multiplicity, the place and, in sum, as the lives of the people involved in the educational experience. Through the explaining of an "intervention" research project carried out in public schools, Miller and Macedo (2018) dialogues with a long tradition of autobiographical studies in the field of curriculum and teacher training, providing the argument that, despite bringing terms linked to subjectivities to the educational policy discourse, they function with a metaphysical notion of the subject and a belief in conscious reflection as a guarantee of improvement of subjective experience. The narrative of experiences is used to question the normativity and as a means to establish the difference in the constitution of the subjects. Disputing meaning Lopes; Matheus (2014), when analyzing the meanings within quality of education linked to the curriculum in educational policy, argue that the articulation between the quality discourse - that claims to be totalizing - and the social quality discourse is favored by the equivalence established between the demands related to knowledge. There is a trend for reading the curricular policies as territories for disputes eminently in order to fix a meaning of curriculum from certain articulated senses. For that reason, the meaning is never sealed and closed. It is valued the deconstruction of the discourses as to capture the way in which the senses have been articulated in social practices within a certain historical context. The proposal is to reconfigure meanings of the sedimented curriculum from a contingent and precarious production point of view and to recognize the exclusion of other possibilities of curricular production. From this perspective, Macedo (2014) argues about the new forms of sociability between the public and private political agents who act upon the hegemonization of a given sense for the BNCC and, consequently, for curriculum and education. Articulating Ernesto Laclau's theory of discourse with Stephen Ball's concept of policy networks shows that such forms create a mode of regulation based on evaluation following private management models, and aim to exclude those that are constitutive of education. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 28 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Dias; Frangella (2018), in this regard, analyze the unfolding of the premises defended on BNCC, observing the meanings of curriculum and teaching that it intends to hegemonize. Frangella; Mendes (2018) also argues that "political space is around the senses - never fixed nor crystallized" (p.4). They identify in their analysis an approximation between the meanings of curriculum and evaluation in a significant articulation of quality / equality / meritocracy. Denaturalizing curriculum’s foundation Under a critical argument for the common national curriculum project, Lopes (2015) analyzes governmental programs of the 2014 presidential candidates in Brazil and challenges them with the politics perspective with an unfounded curriculum. That is, "without absolute curricular principles and rules, defined scientifically or by any other determining reason". She argues that the absence of foundings is "what allows us to be always acting politically [...] It is to try to dissolve the possibility of a preprogrammed intervention and with a project of universalizing pretension, despite the political game" (p.17). Still in this aspect, Lopes; Cunha (2017), using curriculum documents produced at the federal level and pro-base institutional actions, question the production of this policy arguing it is a reductionist myth of education. Applying Derridian notions of text, interpretative context and dissemination, they point to the BNCC as a regularity in dispersion since it is interposed in order to exclude from the curriculum policy the adverse, the unforeseen, the deferred and the imponderable. They advocate an curriculum capable of maintaining the possibility of choosing what to learn and the freedom of difference in the curriculum. A curriculum "without a universal that closes in on itself" (p.11). They go against curricular centrality as a unit, as an objective and controllable reality. In dialogue with Gert Biesta, Lopes (2014) deals with the connections between knowledge, power, curriculum and discourse, arguing that this line of thought is not relativistic. What we have here is a radical affirmation about decisions that are made in an undecidable terrain. In this sense, it shows that the absence of criteria that justify once and for all a decision made among different possibilities for solving a problem - different curricular options, as well as different ways of educating - is not a reason for not making decisions. Confronting the "BNCC": the power in the notions of hegemony, contingency and precariousness Among the various possibilities of working with the Theory of Discourse for understanding curricular policies, the notions of "hegemony", "contingency" and "precariousness" are at the core of many issues. In this perspective, a certain meaning of hegemonic curriculum is the result of the articulation between different fragmented and scattered elements / private and antagonistic demands. It is an operation by which a particularity assumes a universal meaning contingentially and precariously given its political dynamics. In this direction, Lopes (2012) offers the understanding that "the texts of curriculum policies can only represent politics if they are understood as part of a given hegemonic articulation, comprehended in a discourse that tries to establish, although provisionally, certain meanings" (p.7). Pereira; Costa; Cunha (2015) also question the BNCC, treating it as a contingent and provisional discourse, crossed by ambivalences, which, like every moment of politics, projects as universal a particular reading on the curriculum. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 29 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Deconstructing the tradition of knowledge in the curricular field To address the relationship between knowledge and interpretation, Lopes and Borges (2017) articulate the translation-deconstruction in Derrida plus the critique of universal foundations in Laclau. This obviously makes things very different - defends the centrality of knowledge in the curriculum blocks certain interpretation and multiple readings of curricular texts. They reaffirm a position contrary to a normative notion of curricular theory that supports the correct reading to be carried out in curriculum policy. Also, they defend the argument that knowledge and interpretation in the discursive perspective dialogue with issues of alterity and cultural production. They question the senses of knowledge defended by tradition, control, and predictability not because of the recuse of inherited knowledge but because they block the interpretation of such knowledge. The curricullum as cultural production is defended and as a result there should be a respect for otherness and plurality as constituents of identities. Macedo (2017) draws our attention to think about the power relations that knowledge meant as content acquired along the well-established "tradition". Some traditions of curriculum theory advocate: the senses of knowledge opposing the learning process developed by Michael Young (powerful knowledge) and the skills and abilities associated with the meaning of content / learning developed in the USA and disseminated in several countries - both aspects attributed to evaluation results. In her text, the author instigates with the possibility of thinking about the recognition of the citizen and its social belonging along with its control over content, considered important by the curricular tradition. In this domain, it signals the neoliberal option in education that associates knowledge with individual "ownership" of content and, in this sense, a notion of social belonging. Trajectories in the establishment a common curricular base: reverberations in related fields such as teacher training In the broad field of curriculum and teacher training, Craveiro; Ribeiro, (2017) analyzed curricular documents that subsidized the argumentation of BNCC in teacher training. From an understanding of curriculum as a practice of signification, as culture, they argue that BNCC underestimates social interaction and difference, even ignoring the multiple demands in a teacher’s formation. Craveiro, Borges (2015) highlight meanings in curricular policies of teacher training that "mold" the good teacher and their scopes of action in school by fixing meanings. Dias (2017) also questions the standardization and homogenization of teacher training policies in the Ibero-American context with a discursive approach. Lopes; Borges (2015) and Borges, Pereira (2015), from teacher training or professionalization meanings, points out to “the impossibility” of standardization. The political change of the world caused by contextual actions of each individual having as centrality the unpredictability and the risk. In the studies presented, the BNCC is perceived as a “signifixation”17 (Macedo, 2016) which, in our view, is conceived as an "obstacle" for multiple curricular proposals in Brazil. Its sedimentation supports paradigms such as large-scale assessments; pedagogical residence; national base for teacher training, as well as other normative models, with fixed foundations for an ideal curriculum that opposes the model of neoliberal pragmatism. However, we argue that challenging the policy of curricular centralization, in this case, and the BNCC having democracy as a horizon, is a radical political condition that leads us to rethink the way we establish a critical reading. For this, we propose to think in the section that follows, how the discursive approach helps us to challenge/question the current hegemonic model of curricular policy without establishing a normative closure? https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 30 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index The radical political condition of challenging centralized curricular production In the course of this article, we argued about the discursive sedimentations regarding curricular centralization. Our intention was to analyze how such sedimentations favor the provisional and precarious foundations of certain meanings for curricular policies in the Brazilian conjecture. Assuming the reverberating conditions of discourses, there are no national or international boundaries for sedimentations. Although there are no boundaries, it is worth emphasizing aspects as - the context and the negotiation with tradition. Thus, one of our key arguments explores the extent to which the discursiveness field informs, subjectivate and is subjectivated within discursive formations themselves, whether they are hegemonic or not. Moving beyond that binary pairs such as, conception and implementation, proposal and practice, local and global, centralization and decentralization are not inherently apart if we are to follow the discursive perspective. When we operate under the radical political condition - such binary pairs are mutually constitutive. Discourses are in dispute constituting politics as they also act subjectivating and being subjectivated. Another aspect that we emphasize is the impossibility of tracking the origin point of a given policy as shown by Stephen Ball et. al (1994) in their work on policy cycle when operating with three contexts: practice context, curricular production context and the influence context. We consider it is fertile to discuss how, beyond the national or local official curricular texts, for example, educational academic texts reverberate meanings for policies. By doing this we stress that the dominance projects are not limited to the official documents. They are being written / inscribed in our discursive practices that appear either in academic texts, or in political speeches, or in texts to advertise these policies, etc. This research is focused on transiting among the meanings present in academic articles whose main theme is curricular centralization. It is worth emphasizing that our empirical material is not confined to the texts accessed. The discursiveness field is much broader than the discourses accessible through any documents. Although we make moves to try to reconfigure the political and social context, it is worth affirming this constitutive impossibility and it is still worth noting that such impossibility is not related to any technical or theoretical limitations. Ernesto Laclau's Theory of Discourse (2000; 2011) has been our theoretical-strategic inspiration, especially when it concerns the idea that meaning is not constituted by its necessary character. We thus evoke the contingency character in which meaning is established, as well as in which the curricular policies are inscribed, in a discursive perspective. By doing this we also affirm that curricular policies, always tentatively, express social sedimentations that do not fully develop, so as to compose an understandable and fixed whole. The movement of policies, whether national or international, implies blockages - other possible options in the context of political decision-making are also in dispute and are not even capable of being evidenced. It is not possible to control what will be instituted and, at the same extent, there is no way to reveal all processes of significations that have been interrupted / blocked. There, this has been our investigation movement that privileges an interpretation of the discursive chains of curricular centralization in order to reactivate the conditions of possibility of certain articulations that are often silenced by the attempt of total erasure of contingency. There is a tradition that repeatedly praises the full condition of the objects / realities / identities and the attempt to make them seem complete (Marchart, 2009). According to the author, such a mode of metaphysical functioning of the world uses naturalizing devices that make it difficult to perceive a series of privileges in political choices, not by chance, filled with disputes of power. Marks of the western metaphysics present themselves in a realism imbued https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 31 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index with the idea that there is a referent that holds certain notions and / or practices. This realism promotes and is promoted by the expectation of language transparency, associated with determinism that tends to establish causal relations. We argue that to operate from a discursive perspective is a process of reiterated betting, place under scrutiny the realism, essentialism and determinism that inform the discourses as well as inform us (our texts, discourses, practices). So far we have tried to mobilize notions from the discursive perspective to present our analysis exercise having a radical political condition as a starting point, as to place the centralized curricular production under question. By doing this, we expect this strategy puts us, or puts our processes of meaning, as mutually constitutive. The incompleteness character is one of the devices that strengthen the political aspect, is what maintains the radical condition of the politician aspect in the process of discursive dispute. As allegory, as Laclau (2000) suggested, we could think of a moving ground in which we move and there is no way to find something firm (objectivity, essence, foundation) in which we can safely stand. We could only count with the radical contingency that presents itself - an undecidable terrain on which it is up to us to decide. Final considerations Attempts to close meaning of what a curriculum should be as are happening now, as we pointed out in the introduction of this paper. A vain attempt: more and more meanings were / are articulated in the various equivalence agreements that are put in place and that are explored in researches working with discursive approaches. The signifier "curriculum", tendentially empty, needs to be extended to the maximum to fit different particular demands that reach the universal condition in the dispute of meanings. We identified that our theoretical-strategic option for this article focused on two aspects – the curricular centralization and the discursive approach to the curriculum. We explored the possibilities of meaning reverberations that move through flows, from international to national / local levels. Such a theoretical-strategic conception operates by sedimenting the terrain on which they are settles - the self-explanatory character of what becomes a curricular centralization and which senses are mobilized: exacerbation of nationalism and belonging, praise of the equanimity character of the common; universalism; determinism; accountability; among others. We considered that one of the tasks of curricular centralization is the definition of normative characteristics by different inputs, from educational theories, legislations, teaching practices, academic productions, among others. By means of instrumental policies, the normative character gains strength trying to comply with the regulatory principles prescriptively determined. If we lean on critical perspectives, the tendency would be to resist regulatory processes by understanding them as obstacles to the emancipation of subjects and the transformation of the status quo. However, still rooted in the logic of setting grounds for curricular policy. There was no pretension in doing an extensive work, we collected some researches inscribed in the discursive perspective dealing with the problematic of the curricular centralization. We highlight as an important marker of the post structural perspective its broad discussion of power relations in education by reconfiguring the sociological tradition that links debate markedly by economic determinism in the face of the emphasis that the epiphenomenon of the economy can serve as a key to understanding the social aspect as in the theories considered critical. When we think of the impossibility of a fully constituted identity, we still value the post-foundational perspective that proposes to work with a temporary fixation level of unstable fundamentals. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 32 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Regarding the questions about the approach of discursive research, we highlight the radical political condition that presents itself in the process of contesting the curricular production in the Brazilian context, as well as the suspicious condition of curricular centralization policies, in this case the BNCC, as to favor multiple curricular subjectivities based on/ by democracy. The complexity of the discussions about curricular centralization and the understanding of what has become a curriculum has been increasing in Brazil since 1990`s (the proposals of the PCNs), in the various stages and modalities of Basic Education. Our provisional conclusion can be that the reactivation of the discourses that have presented themselves contingently and that may have competed to the establishment of a certain meaning of curriculum can contribute to broader and also to reconfigure other possibilities of analysis. What has to be stressed here is the influence of the Theory of Discourse perspective in the researches analyzed. We have dealt reconfigure the political struggles in Education insofar as they signal aspects of the discursiveness not only from curricular policies, but also from the academic production that challenge them. Notes 1 borges.veronica@gmail.com 2 vivianegpeixoto@yahoo.com.br 3 clacraveiro@yahoo.com.br 4 It integrates the trajectory of curricular centralization in Brazil, which took place since the implementation of the National Curricular Parameters for Primary Education in 1998. 5 In 2015 it started the process of building the BNCC with advisors and specialists, and then the public consultation was held with the participation of civil society to build the first version of the document; in 2016, in order to discuss the second version of the BNCC, seminars were held with teachers, managers and experts open to public participation. The third version was then drafted and approved in 2017. 6 The official documents justify and legitimize the elaboration of the BNCC from the following regulations: a) The Federal Constitution of 1988, which establishes, in Article 210, the fixing of minimum contents, in order to ensure common basic learning and respect for cultural and artistic values (national and regional), and b) the Law of Guidelines and Bases of the National Education / LDBEN nº 9394/1996 that determines in its Article 26 that the curricula must have a common national base, to be complemented, in each education system and in each school, by a diversified part and the National Plan of Education approved in 2014, with validity of 10 years. 7 Here we invoke Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their understanding of radical democracy: "There is, however, a crucial difference, why we never visualize the process of a radicalization of democracy, which we defend, as if giving, in a neutral terrain whose topology was not affected, but as a profound transformation of existing power relations. For us, the goal was to establish a new hegemony, which requires the creation of new political frontiers, not its disappearance "(Laclau and Mouffe 2015, p.43). https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index mailto:borges.veronica@gmail.com mailto:vivianegpeixoto@yahoo.com.br mailto:clacraveiro@yahoo.com.br Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 33 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index 8 Based on Stephen Ball, we consider that the culture of performativity represents a new logic of regulation of the educational system "a method of regulation that employs judgments, comparisons and demonstrations as means of control, friction and change" (2005: 543). It makes use of meritocracy from the exhibition of the evaluation of performances of subjects, schools and educational networks. Based on Lyotard, Ball further explains that performativity represents a culture of "terror" (2002, p.4) and "context control" (2005, p.544). Thus, it is based on leading the subjects to feel "continually held accountable and constantly watched" (Ball, 2001, p 110). 9 "Prototype of a national curriculum framework" 10 Meeting in the city of Incheon in South Korea - World Education Forum 2015. Declaration of Incheon - Education 2030: Towards Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education and Lifelong Education for All. At the occasion, the vision of the global movement Education for All was reaffirmed, initiated in Jomtien in 1990 and reiterated in Dakar in 2000. 11 The Movement for the Common Curricular National Base is constituted by a non- governmental group formed by people and institutions that work in the area of education. They are civil society organizations, academics, researchers, classroom teachers, municipal, state and federal managers, specialists in curricula, assessments, and public policies. It is also worth noting that the leadership of the Movement for the Base is based on the articulation and, mainly, the financing of entrepreneurial sectors in tune with the ideas of the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development / OECD in relation to education. The group promotes debates, produces studies and researches with managers, teachers and students and aims to investigate success stories in various contexts to substantiate BNCC's development in national and international research evidences. 12 The 2010 education initiative in the United States that sets out State Standards and details what elementary and middle school students should know in English language and mathematics disciplines at the conclusion of each school year has become a benchmark for our policy. 13 Organization founded in 2009 in the United Kingdom - it works with education ministries around the world to help develop a "modern curriculum" to meet the challenges of the 21st century - "a world-class curriculum." 14 Regarding national and international Benchmarking, the objective has been to gather insights from indicators on good practices, difficulties and learnings from different experiences of base and curriculum implementation to compare experiences and suggest new approaches. The cases from Australia, Singapore, China, Chile and the United States (New York and California) were analyzed. 15 The time cut was due to the year the discussions about BNCC were strengthened in the academic world. 16 Until then, the critical perspectives - contributions, to a large extent, of Marxist subsidies - were pointed out as the hegemonic ones in the curricular field in Brazil (Lopes; Macedo and Paiva, 2006). 17 “signifixação”, from the original in Portuguese. The merge of the words “meaning” and “fixation”. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 34 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index References Ball, S. J. (1994). Education reform: a critical and post-structural approach. Buckingham. Open University Press. Ball, S. J. (2002). Reformar escolas, reformar professores e os terrores da performatividade. Revista Portuguesa de Educação, Braga, v. 15, n. 2., (pp. 3-23). Ball, S. J. (2005). Profissionalismo, gerencialismo e performatividade. Cadernos de Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 35, n. 126, (pp. 539-564). Ball, S. J. (2010). Performatividade e fabricações na economia educacional: rumo a uma sociedade performativa. Educação e Realidade, n.35, v.2, (pp. 37-55), maio/ago. Beech, J. (2009). A Internacionalização das Políticas Educacionais Educativas na Americca Laina. Currículo sem Fronteiras, v.9, n.2, (pp.32-50), Jul/Dez. Cury, C. R. J. (2014). A Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional e a Base Nacional Comum. In: Brzezinski, Iria. LDB 1996 Contemporânea: contradições, tensões e compromissos. São Paulo: Editora Cortez. Howarth, D. (2005). Applying discourse theory: the method of articulation. In: Howarth, David; Torfing, Jacob (Ed.). Discourse Theory in European politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Macedo. E. (2014). 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C.; Macedo, E.; Paiva, E. (2006). Mapping researches on curriculum in Brazil. Journal of the American Chemical Society, v. 2, n. 1, (pp. 1-30). Lopes, A. C. (2012). Democracia nas Políticas de Currículo. Cadernos de Pesquisa, v.42, n. 147, (pp. 700-715), set/dez. Lopes, A. C. (2015). Por um currículo sem fundamentos. Linhas Críticas, Brasília, DF, v.21, n.45, (pp. 445-466), mai./ago. Lopes, A. C. (2018). Políticas de Currículo em um enfoque discursivo: notas de pesquisa. In: Lopes, Alice. Oliveira, Anna L. A. R.; Oliveira, Gustavo G. S. A Teoria do Discurso na Pesquisa em Educação. Recife: Editora UFPE. Pereira, M. Z. da C; Albino, A. C. A. (2015). Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC): história e precedentes para pensar o currículo nacional. In: M. Z. da C. P.; A. C. A. A. (Org.). Multifaces da Pesquisa em Educação. 1ed. João Pessoa: Editora da UFPB, v. 2, (pp. 15‐38). https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 35 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index Pinar, W. (2003). International Handbook of Curricullum Research. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Price, T. A. (2014). Comum para quem? São Paulo, Revista e-Curriculum, v. 12, n. 3, (pp. 1614 – 1633), out./dez. Ravitch, D. (2011). Vida e morte do grande sistema escolar americano: como os testes padronizados e o modelo de mercado ameaçam a educação. Trad. de Marcelo Duarte. Porto Alegre: Sulina. Ritzer, G. (2004). The Mcdonaldization of society. London: Sage Publications. Süssekind, M. L. (2014). As (im)possibilidades de uma Base Comum Nacional. Revista e- Curriculum, São Paulo, v. 12, n. 03, (pp. 1464 – 1479), out./dez. Taubman, P. (2009). Teaching by numbers: deconstructing the Discourse of Standards and Accountability in the Education. New York: Routledge. Unesco. (2017). Educação 20130: um objetivo comum, 15 anos, muitos desafios. Curricular centralization policy articles and BNCC curriculum group (Proped-Uerj) Academic production with a discursive approach (2014-2018) Journal Reference 1 Policy futures in education (online) Costa, Hugo; Lopes, Alice. (2018). School subject community in times of death of the subject. Policy futures in education (Online), v. 1, pp. 1-17. 2 Educação & socieda de Costa, Hugo; Lopes, Alice. (2018). A contextualização do conhecimento no ensino médio: tentativas de controle do outro. Educação & sociedade, pp. 1-20. 3 Práxis educativa (Online) Macedo, Elizabeth.; Miller, Janet L. (2018). Políticas públicas de currículo: autobiografia e sujeito relacional. Práxis educativa (Online), v. 13, pp. 948-965. 4 Práxis educativa (Online), Macedo, Elizabeth.; Ranniery, Thiago. (2018). Apresentação da Seção temática: E depois do Pós-estruturalismo?: experimentações metodológicas na pesquisa em currículo e educação. 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Base Nacional Comum Curricular: regularidade na dispersão. Investigación Cualitativa, v. 2, pp. 23-35. 10 Currículo sem fronteiras Lopes, Alice; Borges, Verônica. (2017). Currículo, conhecimento e interpretação. Currículo sem fronteiras, v. 17, pp. 555-573. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index http://lattes.cnpq.br/0377631022122389 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0377631022122389 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/1090641466362716 http://lattes.cnpq.br/1090641466362716 http://lattes.cnpq.br/1583175347126296 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5262190522408958 Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 36 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index 11 Educação & Sociedade Macedo, Elizabeth. (2017b). As demandas conservadoras do movimento escola sem partido e a Base Nacional Curricular Comum. Educação & Sociedade (Impresso), v. 38, pp. 507-524. 12 Currículo sem fronteiras Macedo, Elizabeth. (2017). 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Online), v. 23, pp. 23. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/3232517370947081 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0637347272254761 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0377631022122389 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0377631022122389 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5262190522408958 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5262190522408958 http://lattes.cnpq.br/2907172969063414 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5262190522408958 Borges, Cunha, Craveiro. Curricular Centralization Policy in Brazil 37 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 16 (1) 2019 https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index 27 Revista e- curriculum Pereira, T. V. ; Borges. (2015). Des-sedimentações de discursos que tendem a projetar políticas curriculares para a formação docente. 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V. ; Borges, V. (2014). Base nacional comum: a autonomia docente e o currículo único em debate. Teias (Rio de Janeiro), v. 15, pp. 24/39-42. Submitted: July, 20th, 2019. Approved: August, 17th, 2019. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/tci/index http://lattes.cnpq.br/0712774444037943 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0712774444037943 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0377631022122389 http://lattes.cnpq.br/1649689580143996 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5262190522408958 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/5123689806783161 http://lattes.cnpq.br/0712774444037943