Construções discursivas dos docentes das Ciências Humanas, Ciências Sociais e Educação sobre o trabalho e o adoecimento na Universidade Federal do Amazonas

Abstract

The general objective of this thesis is to analyze the working conditions and illness of higher education teachers at the Federal University of Amazonas - UFAM. To do so, a field research was conducted within the seven institutes of UFAM. These institutes are: academic units in the municipality of Manaus - Capital (Institute of Philosophy, Human and Social Sciences - IFCHS and Faculty of Education - FACED), and units based in the municipalities in the interior of the state (Institute of Nature and Culture - INC - Benjamin Constant, Institute of Health and Biotechnology - ISB - Coari, Institute of Education, Agriculture and Environment - IEAA - Humaitá, Institute of Social Sciences, Education and Zootechnics - ICSEZ - Parintins and Institute of Exact Sciences and Technology - ICET - Itacoatiara), both in undergraduate courses and graduate programs, totaling 14 courses. The research subjects were 16 tenured professors with different years of experience at UFAM. Semi-structured interviews were carried out through Google's videoconference platform, called Google Meet, with the representatives of the selected courses. The survey revealed that most of the teachers at the Manaus campus operate in Graduate and Undergraduate programs with a departments-based organizational structure, while the teachers of the inland units work mostly in Undergraduate courses organized in collegiate structures, this occurs due to the fact that only two of the five inland institutes have Graduate programs. According to most of the professors, the conditions of UFAM's physical structures are unsatisfactory. Moreover, the new configuration of public higher education, totally influenced by neoliberal policy, with cuts in scholarships, reduction of financial resources for research, disqualification of graduate programs -especially in the Humanities- according to the professors, would be the biggest influence for the increased and excessive workload at the university, mainly due to academic productivism: valuing quantity over quality in scientific production. Consequently, all this scrapping in the infrastructure, in the reduction of open competitions for teachers and technical-administrative employees (TAEs), and the pressures and evaluations of graduate programs conducted by funding agencies -which have conditioned the funding of research in relation to the amount of publications by teachers, generating this production on a scale which has exacerbated the workload of teachers-, have caused physical and / or mental illnesses in teachers at UFAM. In conclusion, the demands made to Graduate programs, especially regarding scientific production, have greatly increased the workload of teachers, having significantly contributed to causing many of illnesses seen in teachers. In this perspective, many professors report that this arisal in illness stems from the State's limited investment in the Federal Universities, which leads professors to constantly compete for funding from funding agencies in order to obtain financial resources for their research, since the working conditions in public universities no longer ensure access to these resources. There is also a predominance of intellectual productivism which is already reflecting directly on the graduate students, who have seen a significant reduction of the time available to complete their courses, and who must also work outside of the university to pay for their studies, in addition to the consequences on the quality of research because of this accelerated work rythm. The reality of the working conditions of professors, whether physical and/or organizational, has led to physical and/or psychological illness, temporary leaves of absence, requests for retirement, and, in some cases, suicide.