NEOLIBERALISM AND EDUCATION: IMPACTS ON EDUCATIONAL POLICIES

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the relationship between neoliberalism and education, seeking to understand how neoliberal ideas came to influence educational policies and the daily life of public schools. Initially, the study presents a historical contextualization of neoliberalism, understood as an ideology that emerged after World War II in Europe and North America as a response to the crisis of the interventionist State and the postwar capitalist model. Based on authors such as Perry Anderson, the article demonstrates that neoliberalism advocates market supremacy, the reduction of State intervention, and the reorganization of capitalism on new economic, political, and cultural foundations. Following the economic crisis of 1973, neoliberal policies gained strength in several countries, associated with conservative governments, and later expanded to Latin America and Brazil. In this process, they promoted reforms aimed at economic flexibilization, the weakening of social and labor movements, and the increase of social inequalities. In the educational field, neoliberalism redefines the role of both the school and the State, conceiving education as a strategic instrument for training a qualified workforce to meet the demands of the globalized market. Concepts such as efficiency, productivity, competitiveness, and total quality began to guide educational policies, bringing schools closer to business logic. The article also discusses the commodification of education and the attempt to subordinate human formation to the interests of scientific and technological capital. Finally, it advocates an education focused on critical, civic, and democratic formation, committed to human emancipation and the reduction of social inequalities.