SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE MILITARIZATION OF BASIC EDUCATION (1999-2024)

Abstract

MMilitarization programs entered the educational field in the 1990s. Despite their notable influence on basic education, little discussion of the topic remains. The objective of this study is to present an overview of militarized education through the consolidation of two Systematic Literature Review (SLR) studies, which included 56 articles, grouped into eight categories, and 61 theses and dissertations, which required five additional categories. SLR and content analysis were adopted as the methodological approach for both portfolios (articles and theses/dissertations), resulting in a consolidation of 13 interpretative categories, which represent a MECE (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) framework of categories, mostly critical of the school militarization model. Furthermore, a subjective analysis of the categories was conducted using a constructive-interpretative methodology. Three categories (Damage to the Promotion of Student Autonomy, Militarization as a Mechanism of Social Control, and Democratic Management Under Threat) account for 61.53% of the papers. The MECE set of categories was further regrouped based on their analytical perception, which was organized as objective, subjective, or objective/subjective, highlighting the plurality of perceptions found in the portfolios. The majority of papers (90.59%) and interpretation categories (69.23%) criticize the program of militarization of basic education, demonstrating its fragility. In short, the research indicates that militarization fails to respect certain constitutional principles, harms the autonomous development of students, exerts a certain social control over students, compromises the democratic management of schools, opens the door to the commercialization of basic education, reproduces traditionalist curricula, corroborates situations of discrimination, and contributes to student exclusionilitarization programs entered the educational field in the 1990s. Despite their notable influence on basic education, little discussion of the topic remains. The objective of this study is to present an overview of militarized education through the consolidation of two Systematic Literature Review (SLR) studies, which included 56 articles, grouped into eight categories, and 61 theses and dissertations, which required five additional categories. SLR and content analysis were adopted as the methodological approach for both portfolios (articles and theses/dissertations), resulting in a consolidation of 13 interpretative categories, which represent a MECE (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) framework of categories, mostly critical of the school militarization model. Furthermore, a subjective analysis of the categories was conducted using a constructive-interpretative methodology. Three categories (Damage to the Promotion of Student Autonomy, Militarization as a Mechanism of Social Control, and Democratic Management Under Threat) account for 61.53% of the papers. The MECE set of categories was further regrouped based on their analytical perception, which was organized as objective, subjective, or objective/subjective, highlighting the plurality of perceptions found in the portfolios. The majority of papers (90.59%) and interpretation categories (69.23%) criticize the program of militarization of basic education, demonstrating its fragility. In short, the research indicates that militarization violates certain constitutional principles, harms autonomous development, exerts a degree of social control over students, compromises the democratic management of schools, opens the door to the commercialization of basic education, reproduces traditionalist curricula, corroborates discrimination, and contributes to student exclusion.