High school: historical trajectory and educational duality present in the different reforms

Abstract

The article presents a bibliographic study on educational duality of High School and its historical manifestation in the different reforms that have reached this stage of education. It highlights that the duality is configured in the existence of a dual system of education, which aims to serve the interests of the different existing classes within society. For this, we recovered various reforms from the 1940s up to the mid-2000s and established a dialogue with a number of authors, revealing the limits of those reforms and their links to the demands of the productive sector. Moreover, we highlighted the peculiar characteristics of the reforms of the 1990s, embodied in Law n^o 9.394/1996, the Law of Directives and Bases, which put High School as the final stage of basic education, whereas giving legal basis for the enactment of new laws that intensified educational duality, such as Decree n^o 2.208/1997, Decree n^o 5.154/2004 and Law n^o 12.513/2011, which established the Pronatec. The disputes of different interests on education prompted the state to promulgate Decree n^o 5154 2004 and to repeal Decree n^o 2.208/1997, reversing the role of the state regarding the provision of integrated vocational education at secondary level. A simple resumption of the State towards these policies did not mean the extinction of educational duality, given that it needs constant struggle imposed by workers in the State, particularly in the context of educational policies, as well as demands the very overcoming of this social model, based on class distinctions.