When does an educational policy produce inequalities? A study on the implementation of Law 13.415/2017 in municipalities of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the limits and contradictions in the implementation process of Federal Law No. 13,415/2017, which established the New Secondary Education (NEM), focusing on the segmentation of the stage and the mechanisms of production of educational inequalities in the state of Minas Gerais. The theoretical-methodological proposition, anchored in policy enactment theory, combined two phases: an exploratory phase, with the application of questionnaires to school administrators from the 32nd Regional Superintendency of Education in Pouso Alegre (MG); and a second phase based on a case study, with documentary analysis and interviews. In this last stage, administrators from four schools from different networks offering secondary education (regular state public network, full-time secondary education, federal network, and private network) were interviewed. The documented evidence allows for an analytical comparison of how the same policy is produced in institutional and regulatory contexts with significant differentiation and segmentation of the stage. The way in which the NEM was produced in different schools contributed to reinforcing institutional and educational inequalities. The cases analyzed demonstrate that curricular flexibility in the different offerings at this stage intensified preexisting hierarchies, revealing the limits of curricular flexibility policies in deeply unequal and segmented contexts.