NORMATIVE INSTABILITY AND EDUCATIONAL QUALITY: CURRICULAR REFORMS, TEACHING WORK, AND THE IMPACTS OF RECURRING CHANGES IN THE BRAZILIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Abstract

This article examines the impacts of frequent and recurring changes in the Brazilian educational system on the quality of schooling, teaching work, and students’ educational trajectories. Drawing on a theoretical-analytical approach, the text questions how successive curricular reforms, particularly those affecting secondary education, have produced pedagogical instability, institutional overload, and a weakening of teaching and learning conditions. The analysis articulates categories from educational policy theory, curriculum studies, sociology of education, and research on teaching work, engaging with both classical and contemporary scholars in the field. The article argues that top-down reforms, formulated without meaningful participation of school actors, without correspondence to real infrastructure conditions, and without institutional stability, tend to undermine formative continuity and amplify educational inequalities. It further contends that substantive educational change requires time, consistent pedagogical planning, professional valorization of teachers, and political commitment to a socially grounded notion of educational quality. The article concludes by pointing to the need for state policies that transcend the cycle of accelerated reforms and establish concrete conditions for quality public education.