Education, politics and the administration: reflections on the practice of the school principal

Abstract

In the light of a concept of administration (or management) as mediation to achieve certain ends, and of a conception of politics as the living together of subjects (with or without conflicts), and also having in mind the necessarily democratic character of education for the development of human-historical personalities, the present article introduces theoretical elements for the discussion of how the administrative action of the principal of a fundamental school is configured (with special emphasis on fundamental education) considering the ends of education and the specificity of the pedagogical production process. Based on the scientific literature on school administration, the work brings into discussion a conservative conception, closely identified with the educational commonsense, which defends principles and methods identical to those applied by the capitalist business administration, and confronts it with a progressive conception that takes into account the cultural and historical condition of the pedagogical work. By adopting the viewpoint of this latter conception, the text examines school management both in its technical aspect, associated to the condition of a rational use of means, which must conform to the educative character of its product, and in its political condition, related (similarly) to its product, but mainly to the form of social relation that imposes itself as a democratic relation.