Psychoanalytic notes: contemporary discourses on educational assessment in BrazilI

Abstract

Based on the conceptual inquiry characteristic of psychoanalysis in education, this work reflects on the other scene of the educational assessment policy in Brazil. Having as reference studies of Freud, Lacan and contemporary psychoanalysts, the article seeks to discuss the desire which sustains the social imaginary of such hegemonic discourse on assessment and determines contemporary educational discursive practices. For this discussion, I start from the observation that the discursive practices around the external evaluation of basic education III and of the management of the public school system by results and incentives generate the worst possible effects on the educational act, on the teacher, on the child, and on the educational management itself. Such practices establish education based on the discourse of capital, whose mark is the mass production of excellent human capital, and the university scientific discourse of analysis of educational policies, in which the subject is identified and labeled according to results and normative standards. This scenario, which is characteristic of globalized societies, demands further analysis and research to expand the theoretical framework about the status of the subject of desire, the educational act and the possible positions that children take in the face of the demand of adults in the context of education policies which link educational assessment and incentive mechanisms for results. In conclusion, I stress that the linkage between assessment and incentives has made education an even tougher event, since it reinforces the effects of the hegemonic educational discourse and reduces the conditions for education to happen for a large portion of our country’s population.