Neoliberal rationality and teaching work:

the interference of performative culture in the working conditions of teachers in Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the implementation of the performative culture in the context of higher education, advocated by the business management model, and its interference in working conditions, in interpersonal dynamics and, consequently, in the identity of teaching professionals. This text is the result of a macro research carried out by the Group of Studies and Research in Higher Education (GEPES – UPF). The methodology used was historical-critical. The investigation was qualitative, bibliographical and documentary. The article is structured in three sections: the first section analyzes the formation of a governance model of a managerial nature produced by the rise of Toyotist/liberal rationality, in order to understand the purposes and strategies of the formation of the entrepreneurial subject; the second section characterizes the idea of ​​professional recognition resulting from performance as a mechanism of struggle for visibility; finally, the third section systematizes how the formation of a new teaching identity is presented from the disciplinary power of performativity. The results showed that the rise of a culture of competitive performativity in the scope of higher education is responsible for the formation of a negative subjectivity, characterized by suffering at work, the feeling of being under pressure, the loss of identity and generalized depression, leading to teaching worker to isolation and physical and emotional illness.