Beyond management: the process of managing at a Public School of Elementary Education in Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to understand the so-called managing process in a public elementary school as a relational and emergent process, beyond the idea of management. Managing as a process in Brazilian public schools is a phenomenon with peculiar characteristics, since it involves multiple actors of a school community. Everyday practices, conflicts, uncertainties, negotiations, and diverse interests constantly arise in everyday school life. Hence, it is fundamental to study school management not from a perspective of something static and given a priori, but as a constant dynamic managing process, in which management itself is (re)constructed by continuous interactions between people and situations they experience in organizational everyday life. Data was collected using the shadowing technique, which consists of the daily monitoring of an organizational actor during a certain period, in their daily tasks, and documents of the school studied. Systematic observations occurred from February to May 2015, complemented by more sporadic visits to the field from June to September 2015. Data were analyzed through content analysis. The obtained results point to school managing as a constant process of evolution that is situated, transitory, and product of the dialogues, interactions, and experience of emergencies and critical moments in daily school life.