History/Presentation

The Postgraduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Western Pará (PPGE / UFOPA) was created in 2012, under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Anselmo Alencar Colares. The combined efforts of doctors in education and related areas made it possible to submit a proposal for the creation of the course that same year, but it was approved by CAPES in 2013, for an offer of 25 annual places. The first selection took place in November 2013 and teaching activities began in March 2014. The Master's degree has EDUCATION IN THE AMAZON as its area of concentration and three interdependent lines of research: 1) History, Politics and Educational Management in the Amazon; 2) Knowledge and Training in School Education and; 3) Human Training in Formal and Non-Formal Contexts in the Amazon.

The PPGE / UFOPA gains from the fact that there are still few stricto sensu postgraduate programs in Education in the Amazon. It is located in Santarém, the city where the Federal University of Western Pará (UFOPA) is located, the first public university based in the interior of the Amazon, which is 710 km from Belém, the capital of the State of Pará (1h05 by jet plane, 3 days by riverboat and 5 days by road, when traffic becomes possible during the summer!) and the distance to Manaus is similar, with land access being even more difficult. These are the two closest places to which graduates from degree courses and related areas go to continue their studies. As well as improving salaries, qualifications also generate the professional development needed to deal with the unfavorable situation in which schools find themselves in terms of IDEB.

We know that a new Postgraduate Program does not guarantee, in isolation, a reversal of this situation, but together with other public policies and the efforts of professionals committed to a socially referenced education, it can make a decisive contribution to tackling a number of problems for which we currently find ourselves powerless and, in a way, conceded.

The creation of UFOPA and, within it, the PPGE / UFOPA, symbolize hopes that, even with the difficulties of breaking away from colonialism in the political and economic field, we can gradually break away from academic isolation and build opportunities for the best graduates - people without the purchasing power to travel to other more distant centers - to realize their dreams of qualification and, in general, contribute to education in the west of Pará reaching levels similar to the national average.

The Program has an A4 qualis scientific journal: Revista Exitus

General Objectives:

The PPGE-Ufopa has the primary objective of contributing to the development of education in the western region of Pará, through the development of research in the educational field and the training of researchers and teachers capable of grasping the constituent elements of educational action in its multiple dimensions with an emphasis on the Amazonian context.

Specific objectives:

• To provide theoretical, methodological and epistemological conditions for the training and qualification of researchers in the field of education;
• Contribute to the creation and strengthening of research groups that meet the needs of formal and non-formal education in the Amazon and increase institutional commitment to the development of the area covered by the Federal University of Western Pará;
• To produce knowledge on specific educational issues of relevance to the country, especially the Amazon, in line with the program's two lines of research.
• To develop research in Education in order to produce knowledge on specific educational issues of relevance to the country, especially the Amazon, in line with the program's two lines of research.

In this sense, its target audience is professionals who have graduated from university with a focus on and effective work in education, who are teaching or involved in professional and political-social actions that are clearly related to education, and whose dissertation is directly related to education.

Graduate profile:

The following profile is expected of the professional to be trained (be able to:)

• Identify, understand and act to solve educational problems.
• Produce knowledge based on analysis of concrete situations, developing research with methodological rigor and respecting ethical principles.
• Contribute in a qualified manner to the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies and educational management in the region.
• Outstanding teaching performance - Leadership and protagonism in educational policies and practices in the western region of Pará.

Area of concentration:

The area of concentration is Education, which is guided by reflection and investigation of the educational problem as a social process that takes place both at school and in other spaces, allowing research with different theoretical and methodological approaches and the participation of professionals from different areas.

Lines of research:

The lines of research are interdependent, having as their common interest the investigation of the educational phenomenon, from the perspective of research training and qualification of professionals working in school education and other educational spaces, producing knowledge that contributes to improving the quality of educational work.

Research Line 1 - History, Politics and Educational Management in Amazonia

It focuses on the history, politics and management of education, with an emphasis on the reality and diversity of the Amazon region, through: 1. research center on school education from a historical perspective; 2. investigations and analyses of the constitutive aspects of public policies and forms of educational organization and management in school spaces; 3. research that examines the processes of acquisition, implementation and evaluation of educational actions, taking into account the specificities of the Amazon; 4. research into teacher training policies and teacher professional development in the Amazon context.

Research Line 2 - Knowledge and Training in School Education

In the contemporary world, in which there is an intense expansion of the forms of production and dissemination of information and fragmented value, systematic and intentional education processes that transcend immediacy and pragmatism and invest in the development of higher human psychic faculties and corresponding skills are becoming more important. Based on this understanding, it is proposed to study the processes of production, circulation and acquisition of knowledge and omnilateral development of the subject within the scope of School Education - from Early Childhood Education to Higher Education - involving teaching-learning theories and methods; school content and curricula; assessment; dimensions of pedagogical practice; and school management processes. The research carried out in this line includes: 1. the multiple dimensions of school child development; 2. the relationship between reading, writing and knowledge and its guarantees in the school training process; 3. the education of the deaf; 4. mathematics education; 5. the rate of linguistic variation in Portuguese language teaching at school; 6. understanding the processes of learning and teaching English and the initial and ongoing training of foreign language teachers.

Research Line 3 - Human Formation in Formal and Non-Formal Contexts in Amazonia

Conducts studies on the different dimensions of teaching and learning, focusing on the examination of spaces and dynamics that are based on organized and systematic educational actions within or outside the education system in the Amazon region. To this end, it invests in the study and research of: 1. proposals for improving teaching, considering the formal and non-formal dimensions of education, covering themes such as games, videos, music, corporeality and others; 2. teaching cognition and its relationship with teaching goals and practices, subject development and learning in areas covering health, economic socialization and life and social skills, sports and cultural dynamics and phenomena; 3. The sense and meaning of education in collectively constructed environments and interactive situations, marked by intentionality in the action of learning, participating and transmitting knowledge; 4. Music education, its actors and spaces and the teaching-learning processes; 5. Relationships between information and communication technologies (ICT) and education. 6. relations between education, health and citizenship, with a focus on training processes for the prevention and promotion of health and the autonomy of individuals.

Academic path

Summary description

The course will be offered on a regular basis, guaranteeing the master's student compulsory and optional subjects, so that they can complete the course within a timeframe compatible with CAPES requirements and the program's objectives. To this end, three structuring axes are considered, corresponding to the Lines of Research, but with a view to interdisciplinary articulation:

1. The macro-educational dimension, encompassing educational management and policy; institutional evaluation; the history of education, etc;

2. Processes of production-circulation-acquisition of knowledge and development of the subject, considering how this takes place directly in the context of school education: teaching-learning theories and methods; didactics; evaluation; teaching models; dimensions of pedagogical practice;

3. The transversal and informal dimensions of education and personal formation, including both relevant aspects of school education (macro and micro) and all non-school education at different levels of formality.

The current challenge is to think about each of these possibilities and design long-term research projects (thematic projects) into which student research would fit.

Given the scale of the task and the need for hard, cooperative work, each lecturer has to concentrate their efforts on a Line of Research; from an organizational point of view, structuring the Lines involves describing the Line of Research's syllabus, drawing up courses, seminars, training activities, organizing a research nucleus and selecting students according to the availability of places.

Thus, the training path has the following proposal:

1st semester:

Common compulsory subject (45 hours, 15 weekly meetings of 3 hours per week, totaling 3 credits each).

Line of Research course (45 hours, 15 weekly meetings of 3 hours per week, totaling 3 credits).

Programmed research activities - developed in the research groups under the direct supervision and monitoring of the master's student (2 credits).

Foreign language proficiency exam (required for completion).

2nd semester:

Common compulsory subject (45h, 15 weekly meetings of 3h/a, totaling 3 credits each).

Optional subject (45h, 15 weekly meetings of 3h/a, totaling 3 credits).

Seminar on dissertations in progress (30 hours, concentrated in one week, totaling 2 credits).

Programmed research activities - developed in the research groups under the direct supervision and monitoring of the master's student (2 credits).

3rd semester:

Development of the dissertation research.

Qualifying exam (can take place from the end of the second semester depending on the development of the project and the research profile) - required for completion.

Teaching internship - compulsory for all students, with or without a grant; may be waived for those who demonstrate clear teaching experience in higher education (4 credits).

Programmed research activities - developed in the research groups under the direct supervision and monitoring of the master's student (2 credits).

4th semester:

Development of dissertation research.

Writing the dissertation.

Defense of the dissertation (8 credits corresponding to the preparation, qualification, and defense of the dissertation).

Programmed research activities - carried out in the research groups under the direct supervision and monitoring of the master's student (2 credits).

The delivery and submission of an article for publication in an academic journal in the field is a requirement for completing the master's degree.

The assessment criteria are described in the Regulations and consider performance and success in the various activities proposed throughout the course.