Os invisíveis da Prova Brasil: uma análise da avaliação em larga escala considerando a posição (ou a visibilidade) dos alunos

Abstract

This work is the result of the doctoral thesis in education which aims to contribute with educational managers in decision making and in the proposition of policies for Basic Education, with the identification of the invisible students in Prova Brasil. The methodological approach is the qualitative research, by the analysis of contextual questionnaires from Prova Brasil of 2011, which were filled out by students of 9th Elementary School grade from Rio Grande do Sul state. The study is anchored on theoretical assumptions and researches of Alicia Bonamino, Bernadete Gatti and Flávia Obino Corrêa Werle which are related to the history of large database assessment; in the notion of belonging, of social equality and social inequality based on Bourdieu, José de Souza Martins, Maria Celi Scalon and Maria Alice Nogueira studies; and in the policies cycle of Stephen Ball and Jefferson Mainardes to analyze the discourses, the texts and the practices which form and conform the educational policies. The main thesis results prove the existence of regulations that exclude 9th Elementary School grade students from the large database assessment. These Prova Brasil invisible students consist of people who live in rural regions, who are in classes with less than twenty students, or who are children of itinerant social groups from the country. It is possible to know and to characterize them due the data provided by students that were in the assessment process. The thesis also confirm that approximately one third of the students, who are part of the assessment, have their data and their performance disregarded because of normative criteria, and this generate more invisible students. So, the information of the contextual questionnaires from the students that did the Prova Brasil have to be linked with the schools indicators, as it is expected in the internal institutional assessments, subsidizing municipal managers in the proposition of new educational policies.