This article discusses a democratic culture development in public schools trough the analysis of School Council members' discourse in three public schools in Pernambuco. The culture concept proposed by Hall (1997) is adopted, which is joined to the discourse concept, using the reference to Discourse Theory for analysis of the empiric data. This article considers that the democratic administration is not instituted by laws, but has a institutionalize character, that could be built in different ways in each school. It treats the discourse as social practice, that can maintain or transform the social relationships. The empiric data shows that the discursive practices build meanings to every school management, which are constituent of its culture. It was verified that the school administration are structured by democratic practices that they can contribute, also, in the democratization process of the society.
School administration; Democracy; Culture; School council