This study aims to characterize the curricula of Brazilian secondary school courses integrated with professional education, from the perspective of instrumental rationality. We analyzed these courses, as well as the pedagogical projects of the Science and Technology Federal Institute of Piauí – Parnaíba Campus. The theoretical framework was based on the concepts of  Instrumental Rationality (SERVA, 1997; GUERREIRO RAMOS, 1981); the Theory of Human Capital (SCHULTZ, 1973); and Economics of Education (CARNOY, 2006). This analysis enabled us to outline three categories: "the market and its services"; "public development policy"; and, "entrepreneurship and human instrumental training". Our findings suggest that the school represents an intense movement of  assimilation and resistance to the human training capitalist project, and, in the abovementioned Institute, instrumental rationality is shown in the official documents, which project human training to a reproduction pattern of the adaptation mechanisms of the educational process, which tends to lead to a training that is biased by the Capital project itself.