State reform and democratic management in Brazilian public university

Abstract

This article approaches the reform of the State implemented in 1990s, in Brazil, and its impacts on public universities, which needed to adapt to the new diversification and differentiation policy that measures their value by competitiveness and innovativeness. It gives prominence to the loss of control over the definition of its their identify, functions and management. University autonomy and management democratization identified as essential at to the resistance to managerialism. Social participation appears as a primordial element in democratic management of education. The article highlights that social movements, inside and outside universities, seek an effective sharing of power in the decision-making process. Although it attracts attention to the fact that universities keep a centralized and vertical management system that resist to suggestions and opinions forged in the new participatory spaces, the article mentions an emancipatory, democratic and creative reform of public university as alternative to confronting the neoliberal pressures.