Trabalho docente em contexto de neoliberalismo e a relação com o conceito do sofrimento ético-político

Abstract

This study aims to determine, using Bader Sawaia’s concept of ethical‑political suffering, whether precarious working conditions in teaching affect and/or exacerbate the psychological suffering of Basic Education teachers. Ethical‑political suffering is understood as “the suffering that arises from being treated as inferior, subordinate, worthless, an useless appendage of society” (Sawaia, 1999, p. 56). Specific objectives are: (a) to analyze labor relations under contemporary capitalism; (b) to understand the process of labor precarization in general and of teaching work within the neoliberal context; and (c) to verify whether the precarization of teaching work in basic education constitutes an ethical‑political suffering, conceived by Sawaia as a suffering/passion produced in the “bad encounters” marked by servitude, heteronomy, and injustice, a suffering that crystallizes as a potency for enduring pain. The research method and methodology are grounded in historical‑dialectical materialism, employing critical historical reflection on human determinations from their material conditions of production and reproduction of life, supported by bibliographic research and documentary analysis. The study first discusses work as a founding category of social being, addressing life production and alienation and recovering work as humanity’s common unit and the mediating process of human sociability and collective subjectivity, with attention to hominization, division of labor, and effects on private appropriation of land. It then examines human and social relations that shape the understanding of work and its necessity, increasingly guided by precariousness, flexibilization, and deregulation that hinder access to social life. After exploring the historical meaning of human labor and present determinations, the study debates the nature and purpose of teaching work, assuming the centrality of labor in mediating knowledge, human formation, and teacher education, and reflecting on the ontological basis of education and teaching. The analysis addresses current teachers’ working conditions in light of policies such as the Law of Guidelines and Bases (LDB) and the National Education Plan (PNE) 2014–2024 (Law No. 13.005/2014). The research concludes that the category of ethical‑political suffering proved a powerful analytical tool for understanding teachers’ suffering: the precarization of work—expressed through wage devaluation, task overload, and accumulation of functions, resulting in loss of identity and autonomy—corresponds to suffering that stems specifically from being treated as “inferior,” “subordinate,” and “worthless,” arising from the “bad encounters” of servitude, subordination, and injustice mediated by social inequalities.