Power Relations

This book is the result of my PhD thesis in the Postgraduate Programme in Education at the University of Paraíba (UFPB), whose research aimed to understand how power relations and their effects are processed in the daily life of public schools in the state network of Salvador - Bahia, Brazil. As a consequence of this main objective, the study also proposed the following specific objectives: (1) to identify and analyse the perceptions of power relations among teachers and students at secondary schools; (2) to analyse the specific micro-mechanisms of power relations that express domination-subjection; (3) to analyse the modes of resistance to and from power among the different school agents. The aim was to understand the mechanisms of domination and subjection present in school practices that make it impossible to build a democratic school. The study's theoretical framework was based on the approaches of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Michel De Certeau, through the categories of power relations, domination-subjection, objectification-subjectification and resistance. The methodology used was interviews and focus groups in public schools in Salvador, Bahia.