Governmentality and psychopolitics in education: The case of regulating cell phone use in Brazilian schools

Abstract

This article examines education policy on cellphones in schools through a qualitative documentary analysis of Law 15.100/2025, Decree 12.385/2025, CNE/CEB Resolution No. 2/2025, and the MEC RED collection. Drawing on governmentality, psychopolitics, and neoliberal rationality, and employing framing, critical discourse analysis (CDA), and WPR, or What’s the Problem Represented to be?, we analyze how the policy constructs the problem of cellphone use, allocates responsibility, and configures techniques of conduct. The findings indicate a shift of risk from digital platforms to students’, families’, and schools’ behavior, strengthening local accountability and affective self‑regulation. The literature suggests only partial coherence between the diagnosis (attention economy, youth mental distress) and instruments (ban, awareness, and pastoral care), with limited corporate co‑responsibility and a lack of safety by design. Evidences suggest that the curricularization of “digital education” consolidates the pedagogization of the norm. We conclude that adequate protection requires combining school‑level restrictions with structural regulation (algorithmic transparency, protective defaults, and privacy/safety by design), realigning responsibility toward platforms and the state.