A hora da alfabetização: atores, ideias e instituições na construção do PAIC-CE

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to understand how a certain social condition becomes relevant enough to be regarded as an issue worthy of government action and how certain proposed initiatives prevail while others are discarded. More specifically, the goal is to discuss public policy for education and check whether the analytical models employed are significant enough to explain how the literacy issue became part of the policy agenda of the government of the State of Ceará in Brazil, and how the Literacy Program at the Right Age (PAIC) developed over time. From the empirical perspective about public policy for education in Brazil, this is a relevant case when one takes into account that, historically, the literacy policies are focused on teenagers and adults, implying a lack of specific initiatives towards children at the proper age of learning to read and write. In order to understand what drove this issue to the top of the state government agenda, this thesis is primarily based on the literature about public policy analysis, with focus on the agenda setting process and development of proposals. A hybrid approach is used, combining analytical tools from Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Model (1995), the Advocacy Coalition Framework by Sabatier and Jenkins Smith (1993) and the historical new institutionalism lens. The research method is qualitative and based on the single case study method. The data set was assembled from institutional PAIC-related documents, tachygraphy notes from sessions at Ceará’s State House of Representatives, press clippings, academic studies and interviews with key participants from several organizations. The conclusion of this thesis is that, given the complexity of the case in point, the combination of the three analytical methods is adequate and necessary to understanding the multiple drivers for this issue to have entered Ceará’s state government agenda and the design of the PAIC itself. Particularly relevant are the ideas and the policy entrepreneurs, the processes of problem recognition for the composition of a wide coalition and for the specification of alternatives, and the path dependence of the education policy in Ceará. This study adds, as a result, to a better understanding of the stages that make up the agenda setting in public policy, in particular in the field of education.