“A gente tem uma temporada de matéria e um buraco de prova”: avaliação e modos de subjetivação dos estudantes no Ensino Médio

Abstract

The aim of this Thesis is to problematize the ways in which students are subjectivated by assessment in secondary education, using two schools from the Jesuit Education Network (RJE) as the empirical field. The research investigates how assessment, occupying a central place in pedagogical practices, subjectivizes high school students, considering its function and its impact on the school environment, especially in the contemporary context, in which measurement and performance have become the main parameters of quality. Using Michel Foucault's concepts of discourse and subjectivation as analytical tools, focus groups were held with secondary school students in order to understand how these young people perceive and experience assessment practices. To this end, it discusses the power of neoliberal rationality, which transforms assessment into the great beacon of education in the present, opening up two dimensions of analysis: a) the extent to which assessment, in the way it has been carried out, has been placed in a contradictory way, functioning as the other of study, producing psychological suffering; and b) the importance of the school in formative activities that go beyond super-competition and the measurement of results. I believe that we need to problematize these discursive and non-discursive practices that pressure students to perform excessively, to the point of leading them to illness and psychological suffering as a desirable mode of subjectivation. I question the idea that assessment should always be pleasurable and fun, as this can be aligned with the contemporary imperative of happiness, which becomes a new form of servitude, turning students and families into clients. I advocate assessment that is linked to the study process and human formation.