The Rise and Fall of the Teach For All Model in Brazil: The Ensina! Case

• In Event: Three Dozen Countries and Counting: Teach For All's Global Influence on Teacher Recruitment and Training

Abstract

Objectives: In this paper we analyse an unsuccessful attempt to build a Teach For All (TFAll) affiliate in Brazil. This began in 2007, driven by a group of Brazilians who recently completed studies in the United States. Two years later, coinciding with a big TFAll expansion in Latin America, the programme was finally launched in 2011 but only managed to train one cohort of students before it was suddenly terminated in the end of 2012.

Theoretical Lens: We frame our analysis within the literature on the configuration and repopulation of the state (what Jessop [2002] calls the Schumpeterian Competition State), and the role of new policy actors like TFAll in the delivery of teacher education. We draw heavily on Ball’s (2012) theorization of “network governance” as a mechanism for doing and spreading education policy.

Research questions: What factors led to the decline and closure of Ensina! Brasil?

Methods/data: Methodologically, this paper relies on and takes further principles of what Howard (2002) calls “network ethnography.” This is a new approach that combines tools from Social Network Analysis (SNA) with more traditional ethnographic methods (interviews, observations, visits, etc.). We refer to a variety of different source materials (a selection of different websites, brochures, interviews, etc.) in order to undergird the claims made throughout the text. The majority of documents were collected through exhaustive Internet searches on the Teach for All and other secondary websites (newspapers, personal blogs, etc.). A second set of material involves a series of interviews with key participants carried out in the last two years. The networks were stored and built using the software NodeXL and the rest of the data was categorised and coded in QSR NVivo 10.

Results & Conclusions: The causes of Ensina! Brasil’s decline are threefold: first, “operational” issues. The implementation phase was fast-paced, and the programme was launched without having a well-grounded structure developed. Second, the “political” climate was difficult, as the programme did not have the full support institutional of the Brazilian government. Finally, a set of problems related to federal and state regulations. That is, according to Brazilian legislation, a teacher must be certified and pass a public examination to teach in a public school (which Ensina! trainees lacked). These three factors created problems with recruitment and school placement of trainees, harming and impeding the feasibility of the programme.

Scholarly significance: This case highlights a number of problems and aspects that could help us to understand the limitations and risks involved in the direct and decontextualized implementation of policy solutions imported from different contexts. Also, Ensina! Brasil helps us understand the everyday practices behind new forms of governance, more flexible and networked ways of governing societies at a distance, and new processes of construction of new neoliberal subjects within the educational system.

References
Ball, Stephen J. (2012). Global Education Inc. New Policy Networks and the Neoliberal Imaginary. Abigndon, Oxon: Routledge.
Howard, Philip N. (2002). Network Ethnography and the Hypermedia Organization: New Media, New Organizations, New Methods. New Media Society, 4(4), 550-574.
Jessop, Bob. (2002). The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity.

Authors

• Antonio Olmedo, Institute of Education - University of London

• Karolina da Silva Miranda Jardim, Universidade Estadual de Campinas