The Enduring Echoes of a Citizen School: Lessons from Porto Alegre for Democratic Futures in Education

• In Event: Examining the Politics of Curriculum and its Influence

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of the "Citizen School" project (1989-2004) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, interpreting its legacy as a counter-hegemonic experiment in radical democratic education. Drawing upon an ethnographic study of the project, the analysis situates the project's successes in democratizing access, knowledge, and governance and its slow displacement by a series of managerialist municipal administrations. The central argument is that the Citizen School's synthesis of participatory governance and curricular innovation enacted a form of culturally relevant pedagogy, offering a durable, critical model for resisting neoliberal reforms and illuminating the political conditions required to sustain democratic educational projects.

Author

• Luis Armando Gandin, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul