Construção participativa de uma matriz de indicadores para avaliação de programas ou projetos de educação ambiental aplicados a gestão de resíduos sólidos

Abstract

Still modest efforts in the sense of constructing indicators to evaluate Environmental Education actions (EE) applied to sanitation have emerged with considerable frequency in the last decade. However, the low effectiveness of such actions signal the weaknesses of evaluation processes which, if any, most of the times, have adopted little participatory methodological designs and prioritized quantitative elements in order to meet almost always the bureaucratic requirements of funding agencies, rather than the collective learning. From this perspective, the evaluation of social environmental programs or projects jeopardizes its political character and its pedagogical essence to walk on the approach superficiality, which implies distrust or even abandonment of this practice. The present study had as its general objective a participatory matrix construction of indicators to evaluate programs and /or projects of EE applied to solid waste management. In order to minimize reductionism of both theoretical and methodological approaches, theoretical foundations were combined with empirical ones, experienced in the participatory process of evaluating the Environmental Education Program for Solid Waste Management (EEPSWM) of Santo Estevão-BA. To this end, this investigation was divided into four major steps: (i) Matrix Construction of preliminary indicators, (ii) External validation (iii) Matrix Application of Indicators EEPSWM and (iv) Internal Validation. The qualitative approach methodology was based on participatory strategies for the construction of indicators in which theoretical grounds and legal frameworks from the areas of EE, sanitation and evaluation of programs / projects were combined with techniques that allowed the understanding of interests and perceptions of the actors involved in such programs and/or projects could be known. Thus, a matrix was built in seven dimensions (social, political, educational, cultural, environmental, economic, organization of dialog space) and 21 indicators with their respective guiding questions, descriptors and means of verification, externally validated by 11 EE and sanitation area experts from the Delphi method. Such matrix was applied to PEAGRS and internally validated by its social actors. The participatory process of matrix construction was crucial not only to structure the proposed assessment tool but also to the group evaluator maturing, as the eminently pedagogical and political assessment contributes to the actors’ empowerment.