Contextos emergentes: inserção das ações de extensão nos cursos de graduação da UFSM

Abstract

This Master’s degree in Education is part of the line of Educational Public Polices, Educational Practices and their Interfaces, from the Graduate Program in Education of the Federal University of Santa Maria/UFSM and to the GESTAR/CNPq Research Group. The university extension becomes emerging in the curriculum of higher education courses, since the current National Education Plan (2014) foresees in the goal 12.7, at least 10% of the total curricular credits required for graduation in extension actions, making it’s curricular implementation challenging. Thus, the question is: from the perspective of emerging contexts in higher education and current public policies, what aspects are related to the insertion of extension actions in the curricula of undergraduate courses of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM)? In addition to the general objective of analyzing the perspective of emerging contexts in higher education and current public policies, considering aspects related to the insertion of extension actions in the undergraduate curricula of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). For specific objectives it was prioritized: i) understand university extension in the historical and political context of higher education, at global, national and local levels, in the configuration of emerging contexts; ii) identify public policies on university extension and its relations with the context of undergraduate courses at UFSM; iii) recognize the university extension actions present in the curriculum of undergraduate courses at UFSM in its interfaces for the production of emerging contexts. The research methodology is characterized as qualitative of the case study type. The benchmarks deal with the historical and political trajectory of extension in higher education, educational and extensionist policies from the perspective of emerging contexts at the global and local levels; the insertion of extension in the curriculum of undergraduate courses at UFSM, the understanding of terminology and articulation of the teaching-research and extension tripod. The tools for data construction were based on the analysis of institutional documents and responses to mixed questionnaires with twelve Course Coordinators, through content analysis. The analysis of UFSM documents and the Pedagogical Project of the Courses are cited as inseparable research and teaching actions and characterize the main function of the university with society. However, in most PPC, extension occupies the position of complementary activity to the curriculum, largely dissociated from the formative processes of the curricular matrix, highlighting two courses as an emerging context for the fulfillment of the policy of insertion. In response to the questionnaire, the coordinators pointed out actions, perspectives, and conceptions that potentialize the insertion of extension actions in the curriculum. They emphasized their desires in relation to the fulfillment of extensionist policies to what confers the specificities of the courses, the workload, the profile and the student formation, and the teaching protagonism in the accomplishment of the activities. A relevant highlight in the coordinators' responses and in the analysis of the documents was the evidence of the challenges regarding the understanding of extension in the curriculum as an academic training field, inseparable from research and teaching, which demands investment in the understanding of extensionist policies and practices in order to break with the linearity of the curricular organization of undergraduate courses and the welfare perspective of the social function of the University.