Program

History

In line with one of URI’s vocations—to focus on the training and professional qualification of its graduates—the creation of the University's lato sensu Graduate Programs represented an important step in ensuring continuous and necessary interaction between the University and the broader context in which it operates. These programs offer constant opportunities for dialogue, updates, and specialization. The periodic offering of lato sensu postgraduate courses aims to keep graduates up to date in their fields and encourages the production of studies (monographs, papers, articles) that strengthen the University’s research output and enhance the academic production of its faculty. This has served as preparatory groundwork for the implementation of a Master's Program in Education.

Several actions were undertaken to make possible the implementation of the stricto sensu program in Education. During this process, key guiding principles for the establishment of the master’s program were defined, such as the institutionalization of research at URI with the the publication of the Notice 01/2008, Resolution No. 1019/CUN/2007, which established improved research conditions for the teachers. In addition to the Scientific Initiation support in place since 1997, the University began to expand its faculty research efforts.

Alongside the consolidation of research groups and the strengthening of lato sensu programs, faculty members from involved departments have actively participated in continuing education programs for teachers within the University's area of influence— a historical hallmark of URI’s integration with local education networks.

Based on the faculty’s academic output and experience, a proposal was submitted to CAPES in 2010 for the creation of a stricto sensu Graduate Program in Education (PPGEDU), with a concentration area in Education and two research lines: “Teacher Training, Knowledge and Educational Practices” and “Public Policies and Educational Management.” In April 2011, the Master’s in Education at URI/Frederico Westphalen Campus was approved by CAPES.

With CAPES’s approval, PPGEDU began its activities in 2011. Since then, research has been a fundamental element in the program’s advancement, fostering new levels of understanding of reality and creating spaces for educational dialogue. In this way, graduate programs serve as articulators of knowledge construction and resources for proposing new theoretical, critical, and practical perspectives for regional educational development.

Since its inception, the program has achieved significant results in training researchers and professionals to work in basic education, higher education, and other educational contexts. In light of the growing need to reflect on the role of language and technologies in teaching practices, PPGEDU proposed in 2017 to expand its research lines. A third line was added: “Educational Processes, Languages and Technologies.”

From 2018 onwards, the program incorporated three research lines: “Teacher Training, Knowledge and Educational Practices,” “Public Policies and Educational Management,” and “Educational Processes, Languages and Technologies,” offering broad research opportunities for participants from diverse academic backgrounds.

In line with URI’s Institutional Development Plan (PDI), Resolution No. 2107/CUN/2015, which outlines development goals for stricto sensu graduate programs and aims to raise the level of training offered by PPGEDU, the program began preparing its APCN (New Course Proposal) in 2018 to request CAPES’s approval for a Doctoral Program. In December of that year, the proposal was approved. This marked the effective expansion of teaching, research, and extension activities coordinated by PPGEDU, now comprising both a Master’s and a Doctorate in Education.

General Objective

To train professionals as pedagogical agents committed to seeking creative and feasible solutions to educational challenges, capable of working as researchers, managers, and teachers with the goal of generating new knowledge and improving pedagogical practices across different levels and segments of education, or in diverse educational settings.

Specific Objectives

To contribute, in alignment with its research lines, to the development of human resources through the investigation of educational policies, educational practices, and educational processes and their languages, moving beyond considering them as mere reproducers of a social structure or definers of its constitution, and instead, anticipating emancipatory possibilities arising from the contradictions inherent in the historical process
To prepare qualified researchers in Education to design and propose new teaching strategies and conduct research from the perspective of scientific, sociocultural, and technological development at both regional and national levels;
To contribute to the promotion, qualification, and dissemination of educational policies, languages, and technologies, and to teacher training through research, aiming to foster internationalization, the production, appropriation, and re-elaboration of knowledge in the field;
To foster regional development through the decentralization of stricto sensu graduate education, enabling broader access and the qualified development of research through collaboration with centers of excellence in knowledge production across the country;
To produce, expand, and deepen knowledge in the field of education, fostering creativity in both conceptualization and project execution, with the aim of generating innovative proposals;
To provide graduate students with theoretical and practical tools that enable them to generate and expand knowledge, an essential resource for competent professional performance in a complex and dynamic society;
To integrate PPGEDU into the broader dynamics of the university in which it is housed, fostering interdisciplinary practices among different areas of knowledge and extending its reach to other national and international academic spaces;
To mobilize academic solidarity by contributing to other regions, supporting the development of professionals with master’s and/or doctoral degrees in Education, potentially creating economic, social, and cultural impacts that align with the institution’s community-oriented mission;
To qualify professionals to meet the current challenges of Education and to envision future possibilities through the deepening of philosophical and pedagogical theories and the development of research and studies that advance knowledge and educational practice.