Nonpartisan School Movement (ESP): elements of teachers' social representations

This article aims to identify the social representations built by high school teachers about the "Nonpartisan School" (ESP, Brazilian acronym) movement. The Theory of Social Representations was taken as a reference for the research. Fifteen high school teachers from the Pernambuco State city of Recife and surrounding cities participated in the study. The collection procedures used included questionnaires and interviews. The material was processed by the IRAMUTEQ software, which generated a word cloud and a figure (similarity analysis). The results revealed the following elements of the social representation of ESP: the teacher as a central target of the attacks proposed by the movement, the neutral position of teachers, and the lack of information about ESP. We suggest that initiatives be particularly taken by trade unions to provide teachers with further explanation about ESP and its implications.