ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we want to situate the processes of educational policy and reform into their larger sociopolitical context. We discuss the ways in which a set of policies has had what seem to be extensive and long-lasting effects. This is due to the fact that the policies are coherently linked to larger dynamics of social transformation and to a coherent strategy that aims to change the mechanisms of the state and the rules of participation in the formation of state policies. We describe and analyze the policies of the “Popular Administration” in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We specifically focus on the “Citizen School” and on proposals that are explicitly designed to radically change both the municipal schools and the relationship between communities, the state, and education. This set of polices and the accompanying processes of implementation are constitutive parts of a clear and explicit project aimed at constructing not only a better school for the excluded, but also a larger project of radical democracy. The reforms Porto Alegre is building are still in formation, but we argue that they have crucial implications for how we might think about the politics of education policy and its dialectical role in social transformation.
