Graduate Programs

The end of the Cold War, the advent of the internet, and increasing economic integration are among the many factors that are adding new complexities to the task of policymaking in countries around the world. In addition, more open governments in many places have meant that not only public officials but also decisionmakers in the private and non-profit sectors now participate in policymaking and have a stake in the outcomes across a broad spectrum of economic, political, and social policy issues. Regardless of which sector they represent, decisionmakers need broad-based policy analysis skills, both quantitative and qualitative, that will enable them to make effective, accountable choices when faced with complicated trade-offs and options. In Latin America, as elsewhere, this heightened need for skilled policymakers raises the question of where and how such individuals can obtain advanced education and training that both meet worldwide standards for the public policy field and are also relevant to regional conditions. To assess the state of public policy education in Latin America, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC launched a research project entitled “Strengthening Graduate Training in the Applied Social Sciences and Public Policy Analysis in Latin America” in early 1999. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the project was designed as an eighteen-month planning activity that would produce preliminary surveys of the institutional capacity for graduate level training in public policy in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Recognizing the influence of U.S. educational models in this field on Latin American institutions, the project also included a survey of graduate level public policy and public administration programs in the United States. This publication is the result of this initial research. Its chapters offer an overview of public policy education in Latin America, providing a groundwork for future efforts to improve the quality of public policy education in the region.

The aim of this article is to analyze the regulation of teacher education offered in master’s and doctoral courses in the graduate programs in Law (PPGDs) at University of Fortaleza (Unifor) and the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). Using a dialectical approach, our research started from the following synthesis question: how does the regulation of teacher education offered in the master’s and doctoral courses at Unifor and UFC law graduate programs (PPGDs) occur? As a methodological strategy, we carried out a documentary analysis, from which we discuss the Law of Guidelines and Bases for National Education (LDB) No. 9394/1996, the assessment and regulatory documents prepared, from 2017 to 2019, by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes), the internal regulations in force in 2020 and the syllabuses of the courses offered by both law graduate programs (PPGDs). Each document was submitted to an examination in two stages: one was a preliminary examination and the other, along with all other documents. In the analysis of the results, we considered the documents as sources and as data of the regulatory actions expressed by the Federal Legislative Power, Capes and PPGDs. Intertwining the tension between theory and research, we noticed that the LDB does not regulate the training of teachers in graduate courses, which, consequently, affects the assessment of PPGDs performed by Capes, which privileges research, despite its substantive quality, to the detriment of teacher education, dissociating teaching and research, leading PPGDs to deprecate teacher education in law courses in Brazil. The research revealed that, with regard to the assessment of the quality of courses made by Capes, the training of researchers holds a place of prominence and privilege, while teaching holds an unappreciated place, almost invisible. That said, in the contexts analyzed, it is emphasized that there is the absence of an articulated preparation between theory and the actual practice of teaching work, fundamental to the exercise of the teaching profession, a fact that significantly compromises the professionalization and construction of teaching identities, as well as the quality of teaching offered in Law courses in Brazil.