Abstract:
This dissertation is part of the line of research, Education, Institutions and Educational Policies of the Postgraduate Program in Education (Stricto Sensu) of Faculdade de Inhumas - FacMais. This study aims to present a theoretical reflection on the main changes in school management models expressed in educational policies from the second half of the twentieth century. The democratic management of public schools has been on the educational policy agenda in recent decades. Thus, this work aims to analyze the challenges and new functions that school managers face in the process of contemporary democratic-participatory management.The specific objectives are: to identify and discuss the aspects that impact democratic management today, considering the interference of the private sector in public education; researching school management models in educational policies from the second half of the 20th century onwards, as well as identifying how the role of Director/Manager evolved; present and analyze the data collected on the census questionnaire applied to managers of Inhumas’ Regional Coordination of Education. Given the complexity of dilemmas related to educational policies in Brazil, in order to provoke further developments from a theoretical and practical point of view, this work instigates reflections on issues such as: What factors impact democratic school management? How is the performance of the school manager nowadays? What do managers think about democratic management? Therefore, the work is based on qualitative research, having as sources the bibliographical research and documental analysis. These, in turn, are means used to obtain information and systematize knowledge about the challenges of the school manager. The bibliographical review allowed the gathering of information and a better understanding of the analysis’ object. In this regard, in this research, the main authors used were: Libâneo (2018); Foucault (1993; 2001; 2002); Paro (2002; 2016); Saviani (2015), among others. The document analysis was an important technique in this qualitative research, complementing the information obtained, revealing new aspects and supporting the consolidation of the collected data. The established reflections allow us to say that the director's role consists of more than taking positions of an administrative and pedagogical nature, he acts as a mediator of dialogue between the school and the entire community. Its mission is related to insertion and, mainly, to guaranteeing human rights. The challenges encountered are multiple and vary in nature, however, as responsible subjects they must seek new postures, learn to redefine the school's organizational structure and seek possibilities to overcome them. In this sense, it is expected that this study will serve as a motivation for future studies, thus contributing to the research area.