MASTER’S PROGRAM:
The Master’s Program in Education has a duration of two years, divided into eight quarters. The first year (four quarters) is dedicated to completing all coursework. The second year is devoted to the development of the Master’s dissertation. The curriculum is grounded in a set of core courses designed to provide a general epistemological foundation and knowledge of the theoretical and methodological aspects of educational research specific to each Research Area. Complementing these core requirements are three sets of elective courses addressing the program’s Research Areas, organized around the following themes: Language, Intercultural Experience, and Education; Education, Work, and Emancipation; Education, Culture, and Subject Formation.
DOCTORAL PROGRAM:
The Doctoral Program in Education has a maximum duration of 48 months. The first year (four quarters) is dedicated to completing all coursework. From the second through the fourth year, students work on their thesis, with the requirement of presenting and defending their research project proposal (qualification exam) by the end of the second year, after having completed all coursework with satisfactory performance. The curriculum is structured around a set of required courses that provide a general epistemological foundation and knowledge of the theoretical and methodological aspects of educational research specific to each Research Area. Additionally, elective courses complement the program by addressing the Research Areas, organized around the following themes: Language, Intercultural Experience, and Education; Education, Work, and Emancipation; Education, Culture, and Subject Formation.
Courses
GENERAL REQUIRED COURSES – MASTER’S PROGRAM
- EDUCATION AND PHILOSOPHY
Syllabus: Education and Philosophy as experiences of language and world-understanding. Humanist foundations of modern education and the critique of metaphysics. Principles of complexity and epistemologies of the South. Paradigmatic shifts and their implications for the Human Sciences and educational research.
- HISTORY OF IDEAS AND KNOWLEDGE IN EDUCATION
Syllabus: Educational systems and practices in modernity, considering the Copernican revolution, the establishment of the scientific method, and the secularization of worldviews. The production of pedagogical discourse in modernity and its relations to the nation-state, citizenship, and power. Education in postmodernity in the face of emerging interculturality in contemporary society.
- STATE, POLICIES, AND EDUCATION
Syllabus: Conceptions of the State, Education, and Education Policies. The State, international organizations, and private institutions in relation to education policies. The State, education policies, and their connections with capitalism. Neoliberalism, education, and citizenship. School, policies, and social justice.
- EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH – SPECIAL OFFERING FOR PCI MASTER’S (INTEGRA/UNISC)
Syllabus: The transition from myth to philosophical reason. Western origins of knowledge and theory. Relations among education, theory of knowledge, and epistemology. Scientific knowledge, the problem of neutrality, and subject–object relations. Education as a field of knowledge and research object. Different epistemological perspectives in educational research.
- EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH – SPECIAL OFFERING FOR MINTER (FAP/UNISC)
Syllabus: Theoretical and methodological dialogues on different epistemological perspectives in educational research.
GENERAL REQUIRED COURSES – DOCTORAL PROGRAM
- RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Syllabus: Educational research in Brazil. The nature of scientific knowledge, epistemological critiques, and research perspectives. Current dilemmas in educational research. Challenges of writing and producing doctoral dissertations in educational research.
- RESEARCH AND BASIC EDUCATION
Syllabus: Specific topics in educational research. Continuing teacher education. University–community–school relations. Research and theoretical-didactic production with educational agents.
- EDUCATION AND RESEARCH IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES (2016–2023)
Syllabus: The Human Sciences and educational research. Knowledge, understanding, and science. Epistemological critiques and perspectives for research. Different conceptions of the human.
REQUIRED RESEARCH AREA COURSES – COMMON TO MASTER’S AND DOCTORAL PROGRAMS
- RESEARCH AND INTERCULTURALITY IN EDUCATION
Syllabus: Research approaches with participatory and collaborative focus. Research as dialogue and conversation in the researcher’s formation. The phenomenon of learning as language and as an intercultural experience of the body in the world.
- POST-STRUCTURALIST PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Syllabus: Post-structuralism and the production of subjects. The contribution of Michel Foucault’s thought to education, from the domains of being-knowledge, being-power, and being-with-oneself. Foucault’s conceptual tools and modes of investigation in Education.
- RESEARCH IN EDUCATION, WORK, AND EMANCIPATION
Syllabus: Theory and methodology of research in work, education, and emancipation. Problems, concepts, key categories, and methodological approaches. The state of the art in research on education and work in Brazil. The problem of emancipation in educational research.
- RESEARCH AND LEARNING IN EDUCATION (2016–2023)
Syllabus: Research approaches with participatory and collaborative focus. Research as dialogue and conversation in the researcher’s formation. The phenomenon of learning as language and as an intercultural experience of the body in the world.
- EDUCATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF SUBJECTS (2016–2022)
Syllabus: Relations between education and the processes of subject formation in modernity. The decentering of the subject in postmodernity and the role of education and culture in the production of subjectivities, identities, and differences.
ELECTIVE COURSES – COMMON TO MASTER’S AND DOCTORAL PROGRAMS
- BACHELARD AND JUNG: EDUCATION, RESEARCH, AND IMAGERY THINKING
Syllabus: Imagery thinking in education and modern rationality. Reverie and imagination as processes that articulate knowledge. Phenomenological research and the production of soulful images. Language experience, sensible and meaningful perceptions.
- BIOPOLITICS, NECROPOLITICS, AND PRECARITY
Syllabus: Study of the concepts of biopolitics, necropolitics, and precarity, and their implications for reflections on Education in contemporary society.
- CURRICULUM, REGULATION, AND EMANCIPATION
Syllabus: Foundations and critical theoretical contributions to research on curriculum and education policies. Implications of regulatory policies and practices for the school curriculum and for Integral Education. Contemporary approaches and perspectives for analyzing curricular education policies.
- TEACHING ACROSS BASIC AND HIGHER EDUCATION
Syllabus: Teaching as craftsmanship in articulating Basic Education with Higher Education. School life and fields of action and reflection for teachers. Pedagogical cooperation and the alterity of teaching interactions.
- EDUCATION AND BIOPOLITICS
Syllabus: Study of the concepts of power, discipline, and biopower from the perspective of Foucauldian studies and their implications for educational research.
- EDUCATION, LEARNING, AND LANGUAGE
Syllabus: Studies on education and learning from a biocentric perspective and the “Deep America” approach. Diversity of language experience in research and its educational dimensions. Articulations of feeling/thinking in educational research.
- EDUCATION, WORK, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION IN BRAZIL
Syllabus: Study of the development of Secondary Education in Brazil at the intersection of Work, State, and Society. Education policies and Secondary Education. Secondary Education and Vocational Education in Brazil’s history.
- EDUCATION, HEALTH, AND CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGIES
Syllabus: This course examines themes that articulate the fields of education and health based on current technologies. Issues addressed include biopolitical strategies, gender studies, spatial dynamics, and others, aiming to critically analyze educational processes which, when associated with health discourses and digital media, contribute to the production of specific types of subjects.
- EDUCATION AND THE POETICS OF LANGUAGE
Syllabus: Education as a “po(i)etic” event of language production. Imagination as the projective dimension of the body’s action in language within the world. The formative dimension of human expressiveness and narrative as inventive existence.
- EDUCATION: BODY, LIVED EXPERIENCE, AND SPIRITUALITY
Syllabus: Educational studies highlighting body and lived experience as elements of learning. Spirituality linked to ethical and aesthetic modes of education.
- EDUCATION, BIOPOLITICS, AND NEOLIBERALISM IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Syllabus: Study of the process of constructing neoliberal governmentality, the distinctions between democratic and conservative neoliberalism, and the implications of the neoliberal ethos for education.
- PUBLIC HEALTH AND EDUCATION POLICIES: SPATIALITIES AND BIOPOLITICS
Syllabus: Health, education, and subject formation. Public policies and the governance of conduct. The production of space and spatialities through biopolitical strategies.
- TEACHING WORK, CARE, AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS
Syllabus: Dimensions of class, care, and gender in teaching work. Historical and contemporary aspects of the feminization of the teaching profession. Teachers’ qualifications and knowledge. Processes of platformization and datafication in the work of basic education teachers. Political economy and class struggle in the production of schoolwork.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR I (LEIE)
Syllabus: Research topics in education aligned with the interests of the Research Area and Group, with emphasis on studies of language, intercultural experience, and education.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR I: INTERCULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH INDIGENOUS NARRATIVES
Syllabus: Studies on the educational and intercultural dimensions of Indigenous cosmological experience. Education and the symbolic dimension of Indigenous community narratives about the world and lived reality. Articulations among research, arts, and Indigenous narratives in education.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR II (ECPS)
Syllabus: Research topics in education aligned with the interests of the Research Area and Group, with emphasis on studies in culture and subject formation.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR II: WRITING AND RESEARCH POLICIES
Syllabus: Implications of theoretical and methodological choices in the context of post-structuralist perspectives, with emphasis on studies in culture and subject formation. Writing as a research policy. Alternative ways of thinking and researching in Education.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR III (ETE)
Syllabus: Research topics in education aligned with the interests of the Research Area and Group, with emphasis on studies in work and emancipation.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR III: GENDER SOCIAL RELATIONS, REPRODUCTIVE LABOR, AND RURAL EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA
Syllabus: Specific research topics in education aligned with the interests of the Research Area and Group, with emphasis on studies in work and emancipation. Latin American concrete and abstract contexts. Meanings and significance of rural schools and countryside education. Links between gender social relations, reproductive labor, and rural education. Work as an educational principle and popular education inspired by Paulo Freire as philosophical foundations of rural education. Theory and methodology in rural education research.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR III: PAULO FREIRE AND POPULAR EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA
Syllabus: Consolidation of an idea-action about Latin America. History and contemporary relevance of popular education. Paulo Freire’s biography and bibliography. Education and pedagogies in exile. Method and methodology in Paulo Freire’s work: culture, participation, and dialogue. Freirean ethics and Participatory Research. Latin America from a Freirean perspective.
- ADVANCED SEMINAR I (ATLE) 2016–2023
Syllabus: Research topics in education aligned with the interests of the Research Area and Group, with emphasis on studies of learning, technologies, and language.
- TEACHING WORK, CARE, AND SOCIAL CLASSES (2022–2023)
Syllabus: Dimensions of class and care in teaching work. Historical and contemporary aspects of the feminization of the teaching profession. Political economy of the production of schoolwork. Strategies developed by women teachers to cope with overload and work intensity. Teachers’ qualifications and knowledge. Emotional labor in teaching.
- TEACHING WORK, CLASS, AND GENDER (2018–2021)
Syllabus: Dimensions of class and gender in the production of teaching work. The problem of recognizing the experiential knowledge of education workers. Strategies of resistance to work organization and education. Hostile environments and well-adjusted relationships in teaching work.
ADVISING ACTIVITIES – COMMON TO MASTER’S AND DOCTORAL PROGRAMS
- ADVISING SEMINAR I (LEIE)
Syllabus: Educational research with emphasis on studies of language, intercultural experience, and education.
- ADVISING SEMINAR II (ECPS)
Syllabus: Educational research with emphasis on studies in culture and subject formation.
- ADVISING SEMINAR III (ETE)
Syllabus: Educational research with emphasis on studies in work and emancipation.
- ADVISING SEMINAR I (ATLE) 2016–2023.
Syllabus: Educational research with emphasis on studies of learning, technologies, and language.
ADVISING ACTIVITIES – MASTER’S PROGRAM
- MASTER’S DISSERTATION ADVISING
Individual supervision. Preparation and qualification of the research project. Production and defense of the Master’s dissertation in Education.
ADVISING ACTIVITIES – DOCTORAL PROGRAM
- DOCTORAL THESIS ADVISING
Individual supervision. Preparation and qualification of the research project. Production and defense of the Doctoral thesis in Education.
ADDITIONAL DOCTORAL ACTIVITIES
- ACADEMIC PRODUCTION (2016–2023)
Production and publication of an article in a qualified journal in the field of Education. Preparation and publication of a book chapter or a full paper presented at a qualified academic event in the field of Education.
MASTER’S PROGRAM STRUCTURE (450H)
The minimum workload to be completed in courses and seminars is 360 hours. In addition, each Master’s student must complete 90 hours in dissertation advising activities, for a total minimum workload of 450 hours.
Each Master’s student must take three general required courses and one required course from their chosen Research Area, totaling 180 hours. The remaining 180 hours include participation in one Advanced Seminar from their Research Area and one Advising Seminar linked to their Research Area, as well as elective courses according to the student’s research interests and advising guidance.
Courses and seminars of the Graduate Program in Education (PPGEdu) are held on Thursdays (evening) and Fridays (morning and afternoon) at the UNISC campus in Santa Cruz do Sul.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
Master’s students must demonstrate proficiency in one foreign language within 24 months of the program, as a requirement for submitting their dissertation defense, in accordance with UNISC regulations.
The Master’s degree is awarded to students who have completed the required workload, passed the foreign language proficiency exam, and successfully defended their dissertation.
DOCTORAL PROGRAM STRUCTURE (480H)
The minimum workload to be completed in courses and seminars is 360 hours. In addition, each Doctoral student must complete 120 hours in thesis advising activities, for a total minimum workload of 480 hours.
Each Doctoral student must take two general required courses and one required course from their chosen Research Area, totaling 135 hours. The remaining 225 hours include participation in one Advanced Seminar from their Research Area and one Advising Seminar linked to their Research Area, as well as elective courses according to the student’s research interests and advising guidance.
Courses and seminars of the Graduate Program in Education (PPGEdu) are held on Thursdays (evening) and Fridays (morning and afternoon) at the UNISC campus in Santa Cruz do Sul.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
Doctoral students must demonstrate proficiency in two foreign languages: one certified at the time of admission and the other obtained by the end of the first year of the program, as a requirement for the thesis qualification exam. Students may request recognition of foreign language proficiency already demonstrated during their Master’s degree, in accordance with UNISC regulations.
The Doctoral degree is awarded to students who have completed the required workload, passed the foreign language proficiency exams, and successfully defended their thesis.
