A arte e cultura como motriz da formação docente: contribuições do Programa Esperançar para a formação continuada de professores da rede municipal de ensino de Belém/PA

Abstract

This research analyzes the contributions of the Esperançar Program to the continuing education of teachers in the municipal school system of Belém/PA, focusing on art and culture as constitutive and transformative elements of teaching practice. The study, of a qualitative nature and grounded in the Epistemology of Praxis, relied on document analysis, literature review, and questionnaires administered to 93 participating teachers. The dissertation is structured into three main parts: the examination of the relationships between art, culture, and identity in the Amazonian-Belém context; the analysis of the Esperançar Program a public training proposal based on Freirean Thematic Investigation and the pedagogy of alternation; and the discussion of art as a driving force of human formation and the evaluation of its impacts in schools. The results show that the program fostered a territory-sensitive teacher training, in which art functioned as a tool for investigating and expressing local reality, and culture acted as a pedagogical matrix for identifying generative themes. Educators reported improvements in critical reading of their surroundings and in contextualized curriculum planning. The research also identified challenges, such as the insufficient number of art-specialized teachers in the system and the difficulty in systematizing artistic practices after training. It is concluded that the Esperançar Program represents an emancipatory training alternative that powerfully integrates artistic creation, local knowledge, and critical reflection. The experience demonstrates the feasibility and necessity of conceiving art and culture as structural axes of public policies for teacher education.