Reading schools through Kant de Lima: conflict management, discipline and accountability in educational institutions

Abstract

This article discusses the contributions of Roberto Kant de Lima’s work to understanding Brazilian public schools and conflict management processes within educational settings. The objective of the study is to analyze how concepts such as senses of justice, blaming, responsibility, discipline, and repression may contribute to the interpretation of school conflicts and forms of regulation in institutional life, exploring still underdeveloped possibilities of the author’s intellectual production for understanding schools. Methodologically, the article combines a bibliographic analysis of Roberto Kant de Lima’s work with an ethnographic episode that took place in a public school in the state of Rio de Janeiro and with research and training experiences developed through the School Laboratory for Research and Scientific Initiation and the Simoni Lahud Guedes Science Fair. The study shows that school-based research experiences and academic socialization may foster more reflective ways of dealing with everyday disagreements, shifting practices centered on blaming toward forms of responsibility and expanding pedagogical possibilities for addressing conflicts. It is argued that Roberto Kant de Lima’s work offers relevant contributions for understanding Brazilian schools as spaces of conflict management, production of forms of authority, and construction of pedagogical practices aimed at making explicit the rules, expectations, and relationships that structure school life.