This thesis aims to understand and characterize the role and performance of public management in the development of initiatives to promote the cultural enjoyment of students in basic education. To achieve the objectives defined in the research project, the following methodological resources were used: identification of cultural facilities ran by governments at state-level and in capital cities in Brazil; survey of initiatives and projects developed by secretariats at the state-level and in capital cities countrywide, with an emphasis on practices that promote some dialogue between basic education and artistic and cultural manifestations; application of an online questionnaire to managers of public cultural facilities in the city of Rio de Janeiro; and conducting semi-structured interviews with public managers from the Municipal Departments of Education and Culture of Rio de Janeiro. The research results show that there is a big supply of government-owned cultural facilities in capital cities, including various types of spaces devoted to artistic and cultural events. Moreover, there are governmental initiatives and projects countrywide aimed to include arts and culture in basic education curricula. By identifying and characterizing the actions promoted by education and culture departments, it was concluded that these areas based their work on different assumptions, as education departments focus on artistic production, while public management rather promotes the access to enjoyment, especially when cultural management is at dialogue with education, which is a factor that show the potential for integration between the two fields. In this sense, one might argue that cultural and educational government departments must act in coordination to promote the access to enjoyment for students in primary school. This is of vital importance, especially considering that both areas have different scopes, capabilities and implementation mechanisms. Data obtained in this research, carried out in the city of Rio de Janeiro, indicates that promoting students access to artistic and cultural enjoyment does not constitute a public policy, but occurs through initiatives, which are at a more advanced stage in the case of museums, and through of ad-hoc projects, tour classes and other specific actions coordinated directly between cultural facilities and schools. The interviews carried out with public managers point out that the school groups visits to public cultural facilities, often represents the first experience of access to enjoyment for students, and it is also common for such initiatives to be the first opportunity for teachers too. Finally, the endurance of current progress achieved in the field of public cultural management in Rio, and the possibility of implementing intersectoral programs between educational and cultural departments, aimed at cultural enjoyment that are systematic and longlasting, depend on political factors. Thus, it is necessary to adopt actions that safeguard democratic tenets, as well as the continuity of public policies.