Respostas estratégicas das escolas particulares de educação básica frente às políticas de acesso ao ensino superior

Abstract

This paper analyzed the strategic responses that private schools of basic education are adopting in view of the policies of access to higher education, implemented in Brazil in the first two decades of the twentieth century, mainly, the Quota Law and Prouni. It is based on the assumption raised by two previous studies, that due to these affirmative policies, a scenario was created that could generate incentives for students to migrate from the network, in order to enjoy greater chances of entering free higher education. To achieve this goal, the research will rely on a theoretical framework based on the concepts of strategic management developed by the Canadian professor Henry Mintzberg, namely: Generic Strategies, Deliberate and Emerging Strategies and Mintzberg's 5Ps. The methodology applied was the study of multiple case, covering two private schools in the state of São Paulo and two in the state of Minas Gerais, aimed at the schools that attends middle and lower-middle classes, which according to previous studies would be the most affected by these affirmative policies. The data collection tool will mainly be semi-structured in-depth interviews with those responsible for the strategic planning of those schools. The interview scripts are based on the theoretical framework and the literature review. The interviews were submitted to content analysis, analyzed by mixed categories, where closed categories come from Mintzberg's theories and open ones were obtained from the results found in the field. It was concluded that Mintzberg's concepts are still able to provide close analysis of the atmosphere of construction of the strategies of private schools, but that it does not manage to cover all of it. Five categories emerged from the field, namely: strategies for continuous dialogue; coopetition strategy; howler containment strategy; second home strategy; the strategy of knowing just a little more than the parents. Finally, it was understood that the schools analyzed are not being directly affected by these laws, at least, not in a declared way, because as they were not specifically aimed at entrance exams, the goal of parents and students did not require such sharp changes, yet that some still exist.