The incorporation of 21st-century competencies into Brazilian basic education: Corporate action in the BNCC

Abstract

This article analyses the process of including 21st-century skills in the Brazilian National Learning Standards, named Base Nacional Comum Curricular [Brazil’s National Learning Standards]. It is a synthesis of the doctoral thesis, a qualitative research which includes a wide-ranging bibliographical review, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews. Based on Gramscian contributions, we analysed the educational proposal and the action strategies of the business private apparatuses of hegemony that influenced the construction of the curriculum’s political-pedagogical foundations, especially those gathered in the Movimento pela Base. We conclude that the business sector has occupied a central, and sometimes exclusive, position alongside the state in discussions about curriculum foundations. The result is an uncritical adherence by the Brazilian State to the 21st-century competencies recommended by multilateral organisations. As consequence, we indicate the growing devaluation of knowledge, the reduction of the right to education’s notion to processes that adapt students to the labor, and the weakening of pedagogical autonomy.