Teachers unions, educational change, and political strategy in Brazil

• In Event: Panel Cluster on Social Movements, Unions, and Youth Resistance: Teachers Movements, Union Organizing, and Struggles Against Market Oriented Education Policies

Proposal

There has been a resurgence of teacher union activism across Latin America, leading to a polarizing debate about the effects of unions on schools. While this illustrates a consensus that teacher unions are important actors influencing education policy trends, it also suggests that more research is needed on the impact of organizing on education reforms and vice versa. In this paper, I analyze the history of the São Paulo teacher union (APEOESP), made up of 200,000 teachers. The driving question of this research is: What are conditions and strategies that enable unions to transcend economic interests and participate in broader struggles for social justice?
Although most people focus on how social movements shape politics, and disregard the role of unions, I argue that teacher unions are important political actors. Teacher have an ambiguous role in social justice struggles. As Cook (1996, p. 21) writes, “The relations of teachers to social change is therefore often quite tenuous . . . their profession and status may make them part of the middle class, yet they possess a stronger potential than other professions to become radical. They are considered professionals, yet they are often thrust into economic circumstances resembling those of blue-collar workers” (Cook, 1996, p. 21). Thus, in this paper I take the perspective that teachers unions are not necessarily progressive forces, but they hold this potential.
My research takes a global ethnographic approach, attempting to understand the dynamics of global and local forces by participating in the lives of people affected by these changes (Burawoy, 2000). I spent 10 months shadowing the São Paulo teachers union and exploring the political disputes between union leaders. My “field site” was the union itself, and all of the activities, meetings, actions, seminars, and daily interactions that are part of teacher organizing in São Paulo. My data sources include ethnographic observation, documents about union activities and policies, and 60 in-depth interviews.
In Brazil, the São Paulo teachers union (APEOESP) was born with the transition to democracy in the late-1970s, with massive strikes that called for a return to democracy. The teachers were part of a four-part worker alliance: teachers-oil workers-bankers-metal workers, helping to found the left-leaning Workers Party (PT) and a new combative labor federation. However, while a range of political groups were part of the coalition pushing APEOESP to engage in these broader politics, by the early-1980s these groups were divided. I argue that these splits reflect a dispute about how teachers should engage in politics and educational change.
A study of the conflicts within APEOSP sheds light on the different strategies that teachers employ to combat educational reforms and broader neoliberal policy trends. This history is especially important given that APEOSP’s organizing efforts are in the conservative state of São Paulo, where the global education reform movement (Sahlberg, 2016) has been strong.

Author

• Rebecca Tarlau, Penn State University