| Historicize |
For Saviani (2021c, p. 6)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica: primeiras aproximações. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2021c., “[...] the historicizing perspective adopted here constitutes a methodological requirement inherent in the historical-critical conception. To this end, educational research must take as its reference, as the raw material of its activity, objective knowledge produced historically. |
| Materiality/ concreteness |
Materiality/concreticity consists in analyzing the phenomenon under study from its essence and its social relations. For Saviani (2004)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Educação: do senso comum à consciência filosófica. São Paulo: Autores Associados, 2004., materiality/concreteness means understanding the phenomenon under study at the heart of its dialectical and historical movement. In other words, the category of materiality/concreteness allows the synthesis of social relations materially consolidated in contradictions, disputes, social classes, and productive labor relations. This condition helps educational policy researchers to perceive the material contradictions inherent in research. In short, the category makes it possible to explain how, why, where, with what meaning, for whom, for what, who participates, what the movement is, how social classes are articulated in the process of approving the educational structure, and, more specifically, in the approval and implementation of educational policies. |
| Theory and Practice |
Saviani (2021)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Escola e Democracia: teorias da educação, curvatura da vara, onze teses sobre educação política. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2021b. points to the category of theory and practice as central to PHC and essential to historical-critical methodology. In Saviani's words (2021c, p. 120)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica: primeiras aproximações. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2021c., “practice, to develop and produce its consequences, needs theory and must be illuminated by it. In this sense, the historical-critical methodology presupposes two movements for the researcher. In the first movement, care must be taken to avoid theoretical fashions and to analyze the problem as an epistemological commitment. In the second movement, as a method, epistemological vigilance is used to escape the traps of practice and common sense. |
| Radical |
This category, adapted from the book (Education: from common sense to philosophical consciousness) (Saviani, 2004SAVIANI, Dermeval. Educação: do senso comum à consciência filosófica. São Paulo: Autores Associados, 2004.), represents one of the fundamental concerns that every researcher should take as a compass. According to Saviani (2004)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Educação: do senso comum à consciência filosófica. São Paulo: Autores Associados, 2004., it is necessary to go to the roots of the problem, to its foundations. The researcher must maintain a constant reflection that promotes a deep understanding of the problem. In other words, dealing with the problem in a radical way means going to its historical and material roots. |
| Rigorous |
This category stems from the category of radicalism. The rigorous treatment of research, according to determined methods, questions the conclusions and knowledge of popular wisdom and the hasty generalizations that science can give rise to. |
| As a whole/context |
This category stems from the philosophical thinking of Saviani (2004)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Educação: do senso comum à consciência filosófica. São Paulo: Autores Associados, 2004. and points to the condition that all research cannot be examined partially but from an overall perspective. The philosophical aspect of PHC for research can be systematized in the words of Saviani (2004, p. 17)SAVIANI, Dermeval. Educação: do senso comum à consciência filosófica. São Paulo: Autores Associados, 2004.: “[...] while science isolates its aspect of context and analyzes it separately, philosophy, although sometimes dealing with only a part of reality, inserts itself into the context and examines it as a whole”. This category, as a methodological presupposition, requires the researcher in educational policy research to analyze the phenomenon under study in its context and its set of materially constituted relationships in society. As such, they require a thorough examination of the productive, labor, political, ideological, class, etc. aspects. |
