Uma análise sobre os critérios de enturmação nos anos finais do ensino fundamental em uma escola estadual de Minas Gerais

Abstract

This study analyzes the composition of student groups in the final years of lower secondary education at a state public school in Minas Gerais, Brazil, between 2022 and 2025. The research examines how class organization based primarily on academic performance may reflect and reproduce social, racial, and educational inequalities within the school context. The guiding research question is: How are the criteria for pedagogical grouping of lower secondary students defined at Escola Nova Esperança? The general objective is to investigate the grouping criteria adopted by Escola Estadual Nova Esperança between 2022 and 2025 and to propose strategies aimed at strengthening the principles of equality, equity, and educability. To achieve this objective, the following specific goals were established: (I) to describe how lower secondary classes are organized at Escola Nova Esperança, with particular attention to the general characteristics of ninth-grade groups; (II) to analyze how student grouping practices relate to educational, socioeconomic, and racial inequalities; and (III) to propose actions that contribute to the development of a teaching and learning process grounded in equality, equity, and educability, avoiding the reproduction of symbolic forms of violence already present in society. The study is justified by the understanding that schools, as spaces of coexistence and learning, must promote actions that foster an equitable educational process and minimize inequalities among students. The conceptual framework is structured around three thematic axes: student grouping, understood as the process of organizing students into classes according to different criteria (Anazawa & Pazzelo, 2023); the relationship between equality, equity, and educability, emphasizing the need to adjust educational conditions to students’ needs while recognizing the social factors that influence their capacity to learn (López, 2005); and democratic school management, which advocates participatory practices involving all school actors in th e construction of a more just educational environment (Lück, 2009). The methodology adopts a qualitative approach. School-produced documents — such as the Political- Pedagogical Project and the School Regulations — were analyzed, particularly those related to student grouping practices. The analysis was complemented by semi - structured interviews with the principal, the pedagogical specialist, and teachers, enabling a mapping of the effects of the current grouping model. The findings supported the development of an Educational Action Plan proposing interventions aimed at promoting a more just and equitable educational process.