Inequality is the goal: Socio-spatial implications of the Integral Teaching Program in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of the Integral Teaching Program (PEI), implemented in the São Paulo State (Brazil) public-school system, from a point of view of the dynamics of production of socio-spatial and educational inequalities. In the present case, we have investigated the role of public education policy, under the New Public Management logic, as an inducer and reproducer of inequalities. Our results suggest that PEI is based on an insular logic, which produces school units for students already privileged in their relations with the city. In addition, the implementation of the Program has provoked an outflow of students, with a positive effect on the socioeconomic levels (SEL) of the PEI schools and on their results in large-scale evaluations. This effect was counterbalanced by the negative effect in the school units around the PEI schools, where we observed a decrease in the number of students with higher SEL. In addition, if compared to the surrounding schools and to the public-school system itself, PEI schools have fewer classes and students. They are schools for the minority: the students with highest SEL of the system. In these schools, we also observe the preference for a single-cycle organization, which places PEI in the same line as the controversial proposal of School Reorganization in 2015.