EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND STATE REFORM IN THE FHC AND LULA I AND II GOVERNMENTS: THE HUMANITIES IN NEOLIBERALISM

Abstract

This study analyzes the educational policies implemented during the governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010), with an emphasis on their impacts on education funding and on the role of the Humanities in Brazilian basic education. The main objective is to critically examine how the educational reforms of these periods were structured within the context of the consolidation of neoliberalism in Brazil and how this orientation influenced curriculum organization, assessment mechanisms, and the role of the State in guaranteeing the right to education. From a methodological perspective, the research is based on a qualitative approach of a bibliographic and documentary nature, grounded in the analysis of educational legislation and regulatory documents, as well as theoretical contributions from critical literature on educational policies and State reform in Brazil. The analysis emphasizes the relationship between institutional transformations of the State, the guidelines of public educational policies, and their effects on curriculum and the organization of basic education. The results indicate that, despite discursive differences between the analyzed governments, there is a significant continuity in educational guidelines, marked by the centrality of performance-based assessment, curriculum standardization, and the expansion of regulatory mechanisms based on goals and indicators. Regarding the Humanities, these policies contributed to the reduction of their critical formative role, subordinating this field of knowledge to a functional and technocratic logic. It is concluded that, although there were specific advances in expanding access to education and in the reintegration of subjects such as Philosophy and Sociology into secondary education, the educational policies of the period remained, to a large extent, guided by the principles of neoliberal rationality, highlighting the need to rethink the role of the State and to strengthen an educational project committed to critical formation, democracy, and social justice.