Abstract:

In this paper we intend to give a response to current questions not yet dealt with in the sphere of school management in Brazil: what is the influence of a management reference regarding processes of change in a school? Upon seeing the results of a successful school management practice, is it possible to verify the contribution of elements inherent to complex thinking, even operating in an unconscious way? In which aspects or dimensions of the management practice in the school under research is the insertion of the paradigm of complexity perceived? For that purpose, we start from the premise that management as a tool that leads to education in its most strategic action, which is the making of decisions, bears multiple approaches and different forms of application of these same approaches. Nevertheless, the flagrant decline in school indicators has shown in a recurrent way the inefficiency of the current management paradigms, which have not been able to respond in an adequate way to the emergent problems. On the other hand, existing literature has appeared to be incipient in reference to empirical studies applied to the theme of ‘school management’. Thus, in the face of contemporary emergencies which require intelligent educational management, here inserted in a context where obsolete views and organizational schemas persist, the option was made for establishing a contextual dialogue between two different approaches to educa-tional management. The differential consists in raising questions regarding that which is contradictory between them so as to investigate the potentiality of the path of complex thinking in the activity of the school administrator of public teaching. Thus, one of the approaches is analyzed in light of the traditional paradigm in effect, and the other in the light of the paradigm of complexity. Taking analysis of Discourse of the Collective Subject (DCS) as a basis, collected in the responses issued by different institutional segments, the study presents elements that delegate the success of the school to the management project it adopts and to the preponderant role of the administrator in mobilization of the segments for effective participation. Analysis is based on the presuppositions defended by Edgar Morin and collaborators that indicate the cognitive operators of Complex Thinking as a possibility for finding innovative solutions, different from those usually found. The results observed mark out participation and dialogue as attitudes that in an expressive way are practiced in the school management project. Such attitudes, for their part, join important dimensions inherent to the presuppositions of complexity. In addition, it was verified that complex thinking, by its humanizing and inclusive nature, applied to the point of reference of management, contributes in a preeminent manner to resignification of educational practices as of the action of the school administrator, with significantly positive implications on the institutional results achieved by the school.

Keywords:

Educational Management, School Success, Complex Thinking.