Discursive analysis of statements about “quality education”

linguistic strategies of the segments privatists in the context of BNCC-EM

Abstract

This article, which originates from our doctoral research, presents a linguistic-discursive analysis of utterances produced by representatives of privatist sectors that have been occupying discursive spaces historically held by public education professionals. Our general objective is to identify, through a cartographic discourse analysis approach, common discursive characteristics in statements concerning education, especially public education, produced by actors from privatist sectors. The investigation is grounded in French Discourse Analysis and social cartography, drawing on authors such as Foucault (2008, 2010, 2015), Maingueneau (2008, 2011), and Deleuze and Guattari (1995). The corpus consists of institutional texts from organizations such as Todos pela Educação, Movimento pela Base, and Fundação Lemann, which present themselves as authorities in defining “quality education,” with a focus on their positions regarding the National Common Curricular Base for Upper Secondary Education (BNCC-EM). Through the analysis of vocabulary, modalizers, injunctive strategies, and silencing mechanisms, the study reveals how these institutions construct a discourse of authority that, while silencing the subjects of the school ground, legitimizes external assessment policies and curricular reforms aligned with market interests. The findings point to the depoliticization of the educational debate and the naturalization of instruments of control, ranking, and accountability, attributed to an alleged technical neutrality. By making explicit the silences and the unsaid present in the analyzed texts, the study contributes to unveiling the mechanisms that sustain privatist hegemony and to the construction of alternatives that value dialogue with public school subjects.