This dissertation reports on an exploration of school leadership from the perspective of how school leaders bring multiple cognitive interests to bear in their leadership practice. By analysing the discourse of practising school leaders this study has enabled insight to be gained into school leaders’ reflections-on-actions in given leadership situations. On the basis of the analysis of discourse it is concluded in this study that school based leadership, and school leadership preparation, can be enhanced when illuminated through a cognitive perspective grounded in Habermas’ theory of knowledge-constitutive interests (1971). Recommendations are given in this dissertation for the development of an approach to school leadership preparation built on a cognitive interests framework. Based in qualitative research techniques the main evidentiary material was elicited by the use of semi-structured interviews, and the collection of narratives, and was analysed with a variation of Membership Categorisation Analysis (Sacks, 1972).

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2016-07-06T11:42:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 795142 bytes, checksum: 3b485aee72e45c02be94126ea00229fa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-06T11:42:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 795142 bytes, checksum: 3b485aee72e45c02be94126ea00229fa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-20 / The main objective of this work is to show which is the guiding human interest of Knowledge. Habermas in his work Knowledge and Human Interest aims to analyze the prehistory of Modern Positivism in order to recover the possibility of a renewed Theory of Knowledge through the self-reflection of the Sciences discredited by positivism. The main thesis is that all knowledge has connection with an human interest that guides that knowledge at the theoretical level according to the natural sciences or at the practical level according to the cultural sciences. Habermas analyzes the connection between knowledge and human interest in order to support the claiming that the critique of knowledge is only possible as a theory of human society. The Freudian psychoanalysis is triggered by Habermas in order to justify from a theoretical point of view the connection between knowledge and human interest showing that the legitimation of individual neuroses has its connection with the social practices. What is behind the practices in the final analysis is the power that is exercised by the wrong communication, the right interpretation of wrong communication highlights the fundamental human interests of human species, namely: the interest for emancipation. / O objetivo primordial desta dissertação é mostrar qual é o interesse orientador do conhecimento. Habermas, em sua obra Conhecimento e Interesse, pôde analisar a pré-história do positivismo moderno com o objetivo de recuperar a possibilidade de uma renovada teoria do conhecimento através da autorreflexão das ciências, recusar a reflexão isto é o positivismo. A tese principal é a de que todo conhecimento tem conexão com um interesse que o orienta, seja no âmbito teórico, de acordo com as ciências da natureza, seja no âmbito prático, de acordo com as ciências culturais. Habermas pôde analisar a conexão entre conhecimento e interesse com o propósito de apoiar a afirmação de que a crítica do conhecimento só é possível como teoria da sociedade. A psicanálise freudiana é acionada, por Habermas, com o propósito de fundamentar teoricamente a conexão entre conhecimento e interesse, evidenciando que as legitimações das neuroses individuais tem sua conexão com as legitimações societárias. O que está atrás das legitimações, em última analise, é o poder que se exerce pela comunicação deformada. A adequada interpretação desta comunicação deformada evidencia o interesse fundamental da espécie humana, a saber: o interesse pela emancipação.