Abrindo portas do programa escola aberta: as vozes dos/as usuários/as no município de Contagem- MG

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the effect of the Programa Escola Aberta (PEA) in the field of sport and leisure. This programe is promoted by the Ministério da Educação (MEC) from Federal Government, in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). All the research was based on interviews conducted with those that uses the programe in Contagem/Minas Gerais. This research is relevant due to a lack of studies evaluating the public policies in the field of sport, from the perspective of the targeted beneficiaries. The PEA is a public policy that started to be implemmented in 2004, as a result of discussions about the high levels of violence among the youth in Brazil. Thus, the PEA, in the federal level, articulated partnerships with states and municipal governments to stimulate the opening of public schools, located in problematical social areas with almost none space for leisure and culture, on the weekends.The methodology included questionnaires answered by those who uses PEA in Contagem/Minas Gerais, as well as the analysis of official documents.This analysis allowed to notice the limitations of the program, when related to its central objectives. We questioned if the partnership with the international organization, UNESCO, as well as the incentive to volunteering and the attempt to bring peace to conflicts means a connection between the PEA and the neoliberal ideas, which have been influencing the public policies for the last years.Those who uses the PEA do not have significant participation in the program management or its social control, specially when we analyze those decisions related to sport and leisure.The youth, main group of the PEA, represents only 29,70% of the whole group that the program achieves. In conclusion, we noticed that the PEA works with a narrow concept of citizenship, that emphasizes local actions, which most part of the time stimulates consensus and voluntary actions. We also concluded by stating the limits of all this work focusing in the field of sport and leisure that they are inefficient to the objectives of the program.