CHALLENGES OF SCHOOL AND EDUCATION PSYCHOLOGY AS A FIELD OF STUDIES AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AREAOutros que virão depois de nós
Mais pacientes, mais tenazes...
Eles terão como apoio
O canto que foi cantado
Quando foi a nossa vez.
Sei que tudo à minha volta é vontade
De ir mais longe, de viver mais.
Others who will succeed us
More patient, more tenacious
Their steppingstone is the song
That we sang
When we were there
Everywhere is the will to go beyond
and live
(Guillevic, quoted by Snyders, 1993, p. 202)
In 2024, we had the XVI Congresso Nacional de Psicologia Escolar e Educacional (CONPE) (16th National Congress for School and Education Psychology), realized from July 3rd to July 6th in São Paulo. The theme was: “Educational professionals: psychology for the protection of Human Rights”. There were research presentations, theoretical and methodological discussions, successful experiences, and interventions in school and education reality. There were 23 Minicourses, 54 Symposiums, 43 Round Tables, 58 Posters, 147 Experience Exchanges, 252 Oral Communications, 25 Book launchings, and the total sum of scientific activities was 595. We wish to highlight the exhibit named “História e Memória dos 34 anos da ABRAPEE” (History and memory of the 34th anniversary of the ABRAPEE); at the Cine Debate, with the documentary “A revolta dos pinguins” (2015) (The Penguins’ Uprise), by Carlos Pronzato; the guided tour to the Afro Brasil Emanoel Araújo Museum; The debate forums: “School Psychology and Inclusion Politics” (DIPPEE/MEC, UFMS, UNIR, UFES), “The Implantation of Law 13.935/19” (CFP, CEFSS, ABEP, ABRAPEE, ABEPSS, FENAPSI) and “Psychology Postgraduation Formation: Current Challenges” (FENPB - CFP, ABRAPEE, ANPEPP); The Scientific and Organizational Meetings of the ABRAPEE with Brazilian and Latin American psychology entities, and finally, the general assembly of the ABRAPEE.
We believe that the event reached its objectives by providing the opportunity for the presentation of studies, research works, and propositions regarding human rights and education. Also, theoretical issues and practices regarding school and education psychology in Brazil were discussed in depth for the benefit of the democratization of quality education for students at all levels, stages, and modes of education. It was also an opportunity to congregate professionals and researchers in the area of school and education psychology and the similar areas from all regions of Brazil and to make plans for future guidelines. There was debate on the development of political strategies to be implemented by school psychologists and educators aiming at improving educational conditions in the country and promote knowledge and discussions on education. Inclusion of human rights in the field of school and education psychology at the current historical moment when inequality and violence are so intense. Also, there was the presentation of theoretical-practical subsidies for the implementation of Law no 13.935/2019.
In this edition, there was also the introduction of the ABRAPEE Social, made-up of free, post-Congress activities targeting psychology professionals and educators from public education networks. The following themes were offered as online courses: “Schooling and Periodization: Considerations on the relation between learning and human development”, “School psychology for facing violence and prejudice at school”, “School and education psychology and inclusive processes: from laws to practices” e “The School Psychology Law! Theoretical and practical subsidies for the teacher formation and practice”.
When we were writing this editorial for the 28th edition of the Revista Psicologia Escolar e Educacional (School and Education Psychology Journal), in addition to mentioning the CONPE, we decided to share something that mobilizes us because it refers to public policies that directly or indirectly affect education and its current challenges. We approach this as the editors of an academic/scientific journal from a psychology association that is directly connected to education. In both cases, as editors and participants in an association, just like many other collaborators, we are “volunteers” who are committed to this cause: Formation as an unalienable right for all people.
From our perspective, we understand that the first challenge refers to difficulties to keep scientific publications without financial support agencies. Journals like this are a very important vehicle for the publication and sharing of research works, studies, and professional practice reports. Such research works, studies, and practices are the result of attempts at explaining the contradictions and demands of life. Thus, when we come up against so many obstacles to the production and the publication of systematized knowledge, the possibility for theoretical and methodological instrumentalization of the vast number of professionals and scholars of education and psychology interface gets compromised.
All the challenges are also connected to important issues, especially the implementation of Law 13.935/19 - about providing psychology and social services in the public networks of basic education - the unstable hiring of psychologists to work in the public education networks to work in an educational perspective, and Decisions 50 and 51 of the National Education Council, which compartmentalize attention to Special Education from the inclusion perspective and jeopardize the social perspective of disabilities, among other important issues to science and society in general. These educational policies concern directly the fight for quality in the schooling process (especially in public education at all levels, stages, and modes) and to the formation of all people participating in it.
All of these challenges and issues deserve our attention because our humanization process itself is at stake. According to Leontiev,
[...] Thought does not exist out of society, out of the knowledge accumulated by humanity, and that humanity has elaborated by means of thinking. Thus, people only become thinkers when they obtain the language, the concerts, and the logic that appear as generalized reflection of the experience of social practice: even the tasks that individuals assign themselves by means of thinking are engineered by social conditions. In other words, human thinking as well as perception are of social-historical nature. (2021, p. 60).
In this context, the schooling process is indispensable for each individual to appropriate knowledge that has been elaborated by humanity in order to become a thinker. However, not all types of education can lead to such conditions. This is where School and Education Psychology appears to help psychologists in the public education networks promote “the union of individuals and education” (Meira, 2003, p. 55, Excerpts from the original).
It is important to emphasize that we have observed difficulties concerning the implementation of Law 13.935/19, regarding the effective activation of the law as well as the way to hire psychologists and social assistants. Although some States and municipalities have already hired these professionals, not all municipalities in the 26 states were able to make the law effective and still lack psychologists in their multi-professional teams in the education system.
Furthermore, issues such as the obsoleteness of themes and references that are present in the contents for public tests and tenders for hiring psychology professionals, the inequality in salaries and load of working hours for their practices, as well as the assignment of functions that go beyond professional possibilities, are challenges that need to be overcome not only by our entity but also by other psychology and social service entities. And we also have unstable hiring without the realization of public tenders.
The ABRAPEE aims at contributing to the overcoming of these challenges. The association participates in the general coordination for implementation of the Law, in collaboration with the Conselho Federal de Psicologia (CFP) (Federal Psychology Council), Conselho Federal de Serviço Social (CFESS) (Federal Council of Social Service), Associação Brasileira de Ensino e Pesquisa em Serviço Social (ABEPSS) (Brazilian Association of Teaching and Research in Social Service), Associação Brasileira de Ensino de Psicologia (ABEP) (Brazilian Association for Psychology Teaching) e a Federação Nacional de Psicólogos (FENAPSI) (National Psychologists’ Federation). In this year, 2024, representants of this set of entities are participating in a work group, with the Bureau of Basic Education of the Ministry of Education, with the objective to collect and systematize subsidies and recommendations for the implementation of this Law. The expectation, with this GT, is to contribute to the implementation of psychology and social services at Brazilian schools, with a practice that is directly connected with the school’s function of socializing knowledge.
It is important to emphasize that 20 years of struggle for Law 13.935/19 guarantee its materialization in the scope of educational public policies and now it is our job to help psychologists working in public education networks get better qualified in their practices.
All these matters corroborate the need for publications such as the PEE, which provides free access to articles from research works, studies and professional practice reports, as a result of “a syncretic comprehension of the real”, and that goes beyond appearances in search of a comprehension of the multi-faceted real and the construction of alternatives for intervention.
Union makes us stronger, always!
References
- Leontiev, A. N. (2021). Atividade. Consciência. Personalidade (P. Marques, trad.). Mireveja.
- Meira, M. E. M. (2003). Construindo uma concepção crítica de Psicologia Escolar: contribuições da Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica e da Psicologia SocioHistórica. In M. E. M. Meira& M. A. M. Antunes, (Eds.), Psicologia escolar: teorias críticas (pp. 13-77). Casa do Psicólogo.
- Snyders, G. (1993). Alunos felizes: reflexão sobre a alegria na escola a partir de textos literários (Trad. C. A. P. Silva). Paz e Terra.
