A educação do campo na perspectiva republicana de nação: contribuições das políticas de educação do campo em movimento

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to analyze the peasant education policies in Brazil, in the perspective of the universal right to educational access in line with the construction of a republican society project. The emergence of the peasant education movement in Brazil is related to the nonfulfillment of republican prerogatives, among them universal access to free public education, single and secular. We formulated the research problem from the following question: What elements of analysis allow to recognize, in the development and implementation of peasant education policies, actions that contribute to the historical struggle to defend the universalization of education in Brazil, supporting a republican conception of education and society? The methodology based on the bibliographical, documentary and statistical research on the peasant education, guided by a dialectical analysis interpretation that approached qualitative and quantitative elements. The specific objectives are thus expressed: 1) to understand the origin and development of the republican education conception; 2) to discuss the process of elaboration and approval of the peasant education policy in Brazil; 3) reflect on the potentialities and limits of peasant education as a movement that corroborates the principles of a republican education. In the first chapter of this thesis is discussed republican education, based on the formulation of Condorcet in the French context, going to the Brazilian case, with the discussions of José Verríssimo, Anísio Teixeira and Dermeval Saviani. These authors maintain that, as a public function, Brazil did not fully assumed education, a fact that contributes to the maintenance of education and social inequalities. The second chapter makes a historical discussion about peasant education and the principles that underlie it. It also deals with the actions produced from the education policies for the rural zone, detailing the main regulations and guidelines, as well as the creation of specific programs. The third chapter presents the connections between the peasant education and the republican ideals of education: universality, uniqueness, secularity, gratuity and public character. We based this discussion on data from the school census, the analysis of programs and the reading of texts that deal with the implementation of peasant education policies. Among the conclusions resulting from the research, the following stand out: a) the rural population has decreased in the last decades, but, proportionally, the number of enrollments in the peasant schools has decreased in an accelerated way. b) in the rural zone there is still a demand for school attendance, mainly in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil, at the levels of Early Childhood, Secondary Education and Higher Education. c) in the choices for the organization of the peasant education, what predominates is the managerial form of maximization of the school supply, contrary to what they announced in the peasant education policies. d) comparatively there is a greater structural precariousness in the peasant schools than in urban establishments, which confronts the perspective of a single education; e) there are signs of resistance in defense of the policies of the peasant education in places of greater activity of organized social movements. Considering these results, we understand that the struggles that fostered peasant education policy have contributed to the historical defense of the right to education, giving greater visibility to this issue and promoting some affirmative action by the State. It concluded that, in articulation with other popular movements, peasant education can contribute to the construction of a “national education system” that promotes a universal and republican education based on the principle of education as a duty of the Republican State and in defense of a single, public, free and secular education.