The Postgraduate Program in Education at UESB: A Historical Overview and Current Structure
The Postgraduate Program in Education at the State University of Southwest Bahia (UESB) began taking shape in 2004 within the Research Group on Public Policies, Management and Educational Praxis (Gepráxis). Through its work with undergraduate students, teachers, local officials, and educational entities, this group strengthened the connections between the university and communities across UESB’s three campuses and surrounding municipalities in southwest Bahia. Key achievements include: a) organization of the National Seminar on Public Policies, Management and Educational Praxis – Gepráxis Seminar – (editions in 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012). The Gepráxis Seminar gained an international dimension from 2015, becoming the National and International Seminar on Public Policies, Management and Educational Praxis, with five international editions already held (2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2024); d) creation in 2009 of the Specialization Course in Public Policies, Management and Educational Practices, which was preparing to select its third class. It brings together UESB faculty and serves basic education professionals and other interested parties. The course faculty participate in research groups registered in the CNPq Research Groups Directory, have developed research and extension projects, and guided undergraduate students (scholarship holders and volunteers) and specialization students directly linked to the research groups’ themes; e) publication of authorial books by Program faculty; f) publication of books (collections) with texts produced by researchers and group collaborators; h) presentation of works produced by the group at local, regional, national, and international events; i) participation of group professors in the departmental commission created to develop the Master’s in Education project. Gepráxis researchers collaborate with research groups from Brazilian and foreign universities in different academic activities such as: production of articles and books; participation in events; participation in postgraduate courses as faculty and participation in master’s and doctoral examination boards.
The Master’s in Education program, resulting from the initiative of professors from the Department of Philosophy and Human Sciences (DFCH), especially from the Education Area and Gepráxis, therefore integrates professors from DFCH and other UESB Departments: Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies (DELL), Department of History (DH), Department of Geography (DG), Department of Human Sciences and Letters (DCHL), Department of Human Sciences, Education and Language (DCHEL), Department of Exact Sciences and Technology (DCET), Department of Natural Sciences (DCN), in the permanent faculty. All professors are inserted in research groups, with most leading their group; all coordinate research projects, and some are CNPq Research Productivity Fellows.
The Program’s concentration area is Education, understood as a collective good that involves social, historical, cultural, and political dimensions capable of contributing to the emancipation of subjects and transformation of their socio-educational realities. Society is understood here as a network of interdependencies configured in the relationship between society and individual, which is why the educational process is simultaneously a producer and reproducer of values, principles, and beliefs constituted and experienced, inter- and intra-generationally, in the social and historical context. The PPGEd, whose concentration area is Education, is organized into five research lines, considering educational research as the central axis of researcher training, requiring the full involvement of postgraduate students in all academic activities.
Line 1: Educational Public Policy. The research line is constituted from the articulation of investigations that encompass education as public policy. It researches the management of schools and educational systems; the planning, implementation, financing, and evaluation of educational policies; teacher training policies and resulting governmental actions; teacher appreciation and work; social movements and their educational processes, as well as conducting comparative studies in educational policies.
Line 2: Curriculum, Educational Practices, and Difference. Studies curricular thought in different theoretical-methodological approaches. Investigates curriculum policies articulated to agencies, state instances, and curricular practices aimed at basic and higher education. Researches educational practices as social practice, in school and non-school education spaces, focusing on how their different configurations imprint norms of conduct. Addresses difference including questions about the processes of subjectivation and signification in the field of curriculum.
Line 3: Training, Language, Memory, and Subjectification Processes. Studies at the interface between education, playfulness, language, memory signification, literacies, and subjectification processes. The relationship between human experience and the elaboration of knowledge involving historical, social, spatial, cultural, and discursive aspects in curriculum, human formation, and educational practices.
Line 4: Knowledge and School Practices. Develops research through different theoretical-methodological frameworks that have as their central object the teaching and learning processes with emphasis on: curricular practices in school; schooling and meanings of school knowledge for life; relationship between specific knowledge and pedagogical knowledge; teacher training; history of school subjects; teaching knowledge.
Line 5: Educational Processes, Teacher Training, and Inclusion. Studies educational processes and their constitutional dimensions, as well as educational approaches and psychological, historical, cultural, and social aspects. It contemplates investigations on teacher training at different levels and environments, professionalization, organization of teaching work, and educational processes. Conducts research on inclusion in different contexts, the dimensions of inclusive education, society, teaching, and learning processes. It addresses interdisciplinary and critical studies and their relationships with education.
The PPGEd faculty includes 44 (forty-four) doctoral professors, 30 (thirty) of whom are doctors in education. All faculty are involved in research projects accredited at Public Universities, with the vast majority of them having funding from CNPq and/or CAPES and/or FAPESB through the granting of master’s and scientific initiation scholarships. All are part of research groups registered in the CNPq Research Groups Directory, which include not only master’s students but also scientific initiation scholarship holders, undergraduate students, basic education teachers, staff, and professors of the Institution; according to institutional regulations, they develop teaching and guidance work in undergraduate courses, especially in teaching degrees. The stimulus to research and the strengthening of emerging research groups and centers resulted in significant advances in scientific production. The registration of Research Groups in the CNPq Directory reveals the diversity of knowledge areas and points to the trend of growth and insertion of researchers and students in these groups. It is worth noting that many of these research groups include faculty from other institutions, thus revealing the formation of research networks. After the release of the 2017-2020 quadrennial evaluation, when the Program changed its score from 3 to 4, the Doctoral Degree/PhD creation committee intensified its work, and already in 2023, the PPGEd obtained approval for the Doctoral Degree/PhD, which began operating in 2024, with a first class composed of 40 doctoral students. The Doctoral Degree/PhD in Education at UESB is the first Doctoral Degree/PhD course in the Education Area in the interior of Bahia.
Among the reasons for the existence of the Postgraduate Program in Education at UESB, with the offering of the Academic Master’s in Education and the Academic Doctoral Degree/PhD in Education, it is emphasized that UESB is an inland institution, distant from centers where other Master’s in Education courses are offered, about 600 km away. With considerable demand, given the Pedagogy courses and various Teaching Degree courses in other areas offered at UESB and Private Colleges in Vitória da Conquista and surrounding municipalities, the aim was to provide opportunities to the interior of Bahia, more specifically, in the southwest of the state. Additionally, because Vitória da Conquista is located in a region neighboring the state of Minas Gerais, the Program also meets the same demand for postgraduate training in the area, referring to the north of that state. It should be noted that PPGEd/UESB began to receive students from various regions of Brazil, especially after the approval of the Doctoral Degree/PhD. The Master’s Course and the Doctoral Degree/PhD Course receive a large number of applications in their admission calls.
The concern with the demand for postgraduate studies was confirmed in the large number of applicants in the selection processes throughout all years. Candidates come from all regions of Brazil. From 2024, the Program began to offer exclusive admission processes for foreign students, with the first students from other countries being approved, some from Latin America and most from African countries. The Postgraduate Program in Education always promotes events throughout each year, with the main event occurring every two years, the National and International Seminar on Public Policies, Management and Educational Praxis (Gepráxis Seminar), an event that has already occurred in nine editions, always with the participation of renowned researchers from Brazil and various countries. From 2024, the Program introduced a new annual event; it is the “PPGEd/UESB in Review,” an event dedicated to the dissemination of scientific articles produced by postgraduate students and alumni, with the co-authorship of the advisor and framed in one of three categories, namely: a) articles approved and published in journals; b) manuscripts submitted and approved in journals, but awaiting publication; and c) manuscripts submitted to journals and still awaiting review by the journal.
To strengthen research lines and groups, the Program holds different events, either from research lines or research groups, always with significant participation from faculty, postgraduate students, alumni, technical staff working in higher education, basic education teachers, and students from different teaching degree courses. The presence of alumni in the Program’s agenda is observed mainly through two channels. First, through the holding of the “Meeting of Postgraduate Students and Alumni of PPGEd/UESB,” which has occurred since 2017. Second, through the continued participation of alumni in research groups, maintaining strong ties with alumni and postgraduate students from different entry years and Program faculty. The Educational Praxis Journal is an important channel of PPGEd/UESB in supporting national and international scientific dissemination. The journal has received improvements to its portal, observance of the geographical diversity of the origin of published articles, wide national and international dissemination, and, above all, the Journal has achieved important indexing. With this investment, the journal was evaluated in the 2017-2020 quadrennial with Qualis A2 (a scientific measurement of the paper’s relevance, being A1 the top score and c the lowest entry level on a 8 level’s scale). The Educational Praxis Journal is one of the most cited journals among those in the Education Area in Brazil. The Journal has been part of the National Forum of Education Area Journal Editors (FEPAE) since 2015, with its editor already assuming coordination functions of said Forum. The interaction with undergraduate education, especially with teaching degree courses, is marked by the fact that all faculty work in undergraduate education, offering at least one course every semester. Additionally, many PPGEd faculty participate in the Institutional Program for Teaching Initiation Scholarships (PIBID), and have also participated in the Pedagogical Residency Program (PRP). The publication of books aims to solidify and expand academic cooperation with postgraduate programs at the master’s and doctoral level located in the state of Bahia and other national and international institutions, aiming to consolidate the Program’s research lines.
PPGEd/UESB has been an institutional associate of the National Association of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Education (ANPEd) since its creation in 2013; more than half of the faculty are individual associates of the same Association and others in the Education Area, with broad national and international insertion, with one PPGEd faculty member being part of the ANPEd Board since 2019. The participation of faculty, postgraduate students, and Program alumni in Area events in Brazil and abroad has been a very present dynamic on the agenda of scientific dissemination of PPGEd production, with presentation, publication of papers, in addition to strong presence of faculty in scientific programming and on event councils that strengthen the Program’s insertion. The concern with flow is observed by the existence of the Student Monitoring Committee, by research line, with the objective of ensuring the deadlines of each course. To keep up with the dynamic research interest, the Program carried out a reformulation of the Master’s course curriculum in 2018 and in 2024, in view of the different research themes of faculty who each year are accredited to the Program with research projects focused on current themes. Similarly, the research lines were reformulated and expanded in 2018 (going from two to four lines) and in 2024 (starting in 2025), when PPGEd/UESB will operate with five research lines.
The opinions from quadrennial evaluations are part of the Program’s work agenda, serving to direct both continuity processes and the dynamics of reformulation and redefinition of other documents approved each quadrennial, such as the Quadrennial Strategic Planning (PEQ) of PPGEd/UESB – 2017-2020, the Quadrennial Self-Assessment Plan (PAAQ) of PPGEd/UESB – 2017-2020, the Internal Quadrennial Self-Assessment Report (RIAAQ) of PPGEd/UESB – 2017-2020, and the Quadrennial Scientific Dissemination Plan (PDCQ) of PPGEd/UESB – 2017-2020. All these documents result from studies conducted within the Program’s Self-Assessment Seminars, also strengthened by the institutional support of the Research, Postgraduate Studies, and Innovation Pro-Rectory (PROPPI), especially with the Postgraduate Quality Program (Qualipós) at UESB, the UESB Resource Concession Program directly to each postgraduate program of the institution, the AuxPPG, via grant term for the program coordinator to administer through a researcher card, similar to the concessions coming from CAPES to programs and from CNPq to researchers.
As a result of the self-assessment processes and Internal Self-Assessment Seminars, PPGEd/UESB always updates two internal norms, and in 2024, some of them were updated, such as: a) PPGEd Internal Norm No. 01/2024 (Norm for defining the offer of postgraduate student supervision vacancies by faculty); b) PPGEd Internal Norm No. 02/2024 (Norm for faculty accreditation); c) PPGEd Internal Norm No. 03/2024 (Norm for faculty re-acreditation); d) PPGEd Internal Norm No. 04/2024 (Extension of deadline for Dissertation or Thesis Qualification); e) PPGEd Internal Norm No. 05/2024 (Extension of deadline for Public Defense of Dissertation or Thesis); and f) PPGEd Internal Norm No. 06/2024 (Norm for granting and monitoring scholarships). PPGEd has always had scholarships granted by funding agencies: Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and Bahia State Research Support Foundation (FAPESB) and post-doctoral scholarship from the National Post-Doctoral Program (PNPD), granted by CAPES. In 2024, the Program received a significant expansion in the number of master’s scholarships granted by CAPES.
The participation of faculty, postgraduate students, and alumni linked to research groups in international actions has intensified over the years, especially from the 2021-2024 quadrennial, through research networks, collaboration in international network research, participation in events, especially with lectures, in addition to publication in foreign journals. The accreditation of faculty in the Program has been frequent, as new professors of the institution have qualified at the doctoral level, and even older doctors have perceived the Program as an important alternative to expand their fields of action in the Institution and, therefore, these faculty have sought PPGEd to learn about accreditation rules and have qualified their curricula and achieved approval in faculty accreditation calls. PPGEd itself, before having its own Doctoral Degree/PhD in Education approved, approved with CAPES the offering of an Interinstitutional Doctoral class (Dinter), in partnership with the Postgraduate Program in Education and Contemporaneity (PPGEduC), of the State University of Bahia (UNEB), an opportunity in which 18 UESB faculty were qualified at the Doctoral Degree/PhD in Education level, thus expanding the possibilities for new faculty accreditations.
The PPGEd/UESB Dissertation and Thesis Repository counts in 2025 with more than 430 products available for studies and research.