Challenges to Children's Autonomy in a Brazilian State School

Abstract

Children's autonomy has stood as a main goal in the process of educational transmission understood as an increasing capacihj on children's part to share the normative encodings of social life supported by the selfs rational choice. This notion of autonomy leads to a reified view of human capacities over and above cultural and contextual particularities that, in fact, determine how subjects seek to understand norms in face of the ever changing demands of social life. Based on a one year long empirical research, using a variety of ethnographic approaches, this paper problematizes such a notion of autonomy and analyses how youth of a state school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, voice their demands and dissatisfactions and question the status quo. The preservation of the social imaginan1 of distinctiveness and past achievements of the school was found to hinder feelings and opinions of disapproval by students and devalue unanticipated and novel situations felt to be disruptive and menacing. Tensions in the school social dynamics were fuelled in the direction of an arena over which the students could find no interference from teachers and could manage by themselves: that of peer relationships and friendships . BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT RESEARCH For long the issue of children's participation in schools has been investigated by my research group. Recently our research project conducted in private and state schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between 2006 and 2010, provided interesting results (Castro & al., 2012) .. They pointed at a predominant view of students' participation which coalesced with their position as submissive learners who should limit their actions within the scope of teachers' expectations. Students' participation at school was expelled out as dedication to the studies; obedience to norms and cooperation with the elders' requests. Although this was found to be the predominant students' view in line with teachers' expectations, it did not contribute to a peaceful and harmonious school environment. Along with group discussions with children our research team listened to their grievances, frustrations and complaints about being unfairly treated and having •Address for Communication: *Research Centre for the Study of Contemporary Childhood and Youth, Institute of Psychology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The Oriental Anthropologist, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2014, Pages 289-303 © OICSR., Allahabad Corresponding Author E-mail :lrcastro@infoltnk.com.br 290 Lucia Rabello de Castro to acquiesce to unreasonable demands. They questioned many of the rules they were constrained to obey as well as the crystallized position of the pupil before inattentive and condescending teachers. Thus, though cognitively and consciously, students' views of participation were conventional, they also expressed their unease and indignation as to how the relationships between teachers and students were structured. However, when they were confronted with the opportunity to say what and how they would like to change, they often ended up by dropping any initiative or hope to make changes for fear, among other reasons, they would lack the capacity to reach an agreement among them. Along with the discussions they expressed so many different views that they feared that a chaotic situation might take place if they were convoked to have a say in changing school norms. On the other hand, in the teachers' eyes, students' criticism lacked legitimation and was often dismissed because, as children, they were not considered capable of expressing adequate demands and voicing their interests appropriately. As learners, their position at school should be to follow adults' orientations. The overall normative view held by teachers was that children were not sufficiently qualified as moral and psychological agents as to bear their own claims. School norms should be provided by adults who should secure that they were followed for children's own good. Adults should deal with any disputes about norms as pedagogical opportunities for children to learn to adhere to discipline and submission to authority rather than to question the status quo. Thus, it seemed that students' possibilities to participate in the process of discussing, negotiating, and thereby, understanding the norms whereby their conduct was evaluated looked remote. On the part of the students, there were grievances and anger for not being heard and taken into due consideration, but also feelings of impotence, apathy and passivity which were conducive to an attitude of resentful acceptance of the status quo. On the part of the teachers, a rigid outlook concerning their position as authorities in the educational context led to a non-reflexive and impermeable attitude vis-a-vis students' demands and emergent conditions of school life. This impasse pointed at the difficulties with respect to the pacts that were supposed to regulate both youth's and teachers' conduct at school. On the part of students, they questioned the values and norms that were supposed to inspire their motives to be at school; on the part of the teachers, they clang to the truths by which they were educated and which seemed still relevant to guide their task of educational transmission. This imbroglio led us to interrogate the notion of autonomy and its relevance as an inspiring motivation of educational action at schools. For many teachers autonomy is understood as the process whereby children internalize social norms transmitted by their elders who know more and better than they, thereby learning to act rationally The Oriental Anthropologist Challenges to Children's Autonomy in a Brazilian State School 291 and as moral agents (Fischann, 2007; Fleith and Alencar, 2006; Freitas, 1999). Thus, children are supposed to learn to adjust themselves to an inherited corpus of norms of conduct already existing, held to be adequate and fair. In the teachers' eyes autonomy is a moral and psychological attribute to be learnt by children as they submit themselves to the social norms and make them their own. In this vein, there should be no a priori reason for children to question the status quo and pose demands different from those already anticipated and attended to. The development of autonomy is conceived to parallel the development of reason, in the way Piaget (1994) and Kohlberg (1984) conceptualized. Schools are institutions devoted to foster the intellectual and moral development of children, one aspect of which being the development of autonomy. This has meant in practical terms that norms and values governing conducts in schools consist the instituted background the common good by which all, teachers and pupils, should abide. However, it is teachers that are in the position to enforce and interpret rules whereas pupils should obey and acquiesce to their demands. Many questions arise as one thinks about the fostering of autonomy in schools in the present context of educational demands: should the common good in schools be undisputable? Should not children have a say about it? Have teachers thought about what is fair and adequate, or are they themselves just being commanded by norms emanating from higher instances? How is the common good of schools established? What can then constitute autonomous action in schools today? The present study sought to explore answers to these questions looking at the results of an intervention-based research project conducted at a state school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, along the year of 2012. Our research sought to interrogate about the conditions which are likely to foster students' concern for their school. As we interrogated the conventional wisdom about autonomy, we looked at the ways whereby students voiced their frustrations about the status quo and how they justified their opinions for changes they thought necessary. In this way, the present research aims at problematizing the concept of autonomy as it seems to reinforce a naturalized hierarchical position for students and teachers which hinders possibilities for a more participative institutional atmosphere in schools. Thus, a revised concept of autonomy is needed which is discussed in the next section. Autonomy in Schools: from Reified Reason towards Struggles for Meaning and Action Autonomy is a notion that has been assimilated into a most wide range of disciplines: law, ethics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and political sciences. It has referred to a state to be sought for by individuals, groups, countries and organizations. Etymologically, it derives from the Greek autos, meaning, by oneself, and nomos, meaning law, which The Oriental Anthropologist 292 Lucia Rabello de Castro comes to mean giving oneself one's law. Traditionally, it expresses the condition whereby a person or a collective can determine the laws by which to bind to. Throughout the history of philosophy the term autonomy has received different connotations, but it has kept its central meaning of a condition of being free from undue coercions on thoughts or actions so that one can do what is reasonable, or what makes one happy. With the philosopher Immanuel Kant the notion of autonomy gained the status of a categorical imperative of reason, to act according to a rule that can become universal. Therefore, reason can inform about what should be done irrespective of who is the agent, and direct one's will to do it. The autonomous will acts out of a moral duty and confers dignity to those abiding to a universal rule by one's own consent. Kant's conception of autonomy has been criticized on account of neglecting the social and cultural aspects of knowledge/ morality construction (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000; Nedelsky, 1989). The construction of a moral order depends on the particular values that different social groups come to value (Benjamin, 1988). Thus, the idealized activity of an abstract and reified reason cannot but essentializea particular way of seeing the