Congresso Internacional de Pedagogia Social

Abstract

ELSAS, Vanessa Porfírio de Faria. EJA: entre a reprodução e a educação popular. In Proceedings of the 4th.Congresso Internacional de Pedagogia Social Congresso Internacional de Pedagogia Social, 2012, São Paulo (SP, Brazil) [online]. 2012 [cited 23 April 2024]. Available from: <http://www.proceedings.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=MSC0000000092012000200037&lng=en&nrm=iso> .

This communication relates to the master's research, " CIEJA's Project formation trajectory: the role of local actors." Although in early stages of development, the research has identified a tension between different policies and views on the Youth and Adult Education (EJA) in São Paulo in the past two decades. In order to uncover this tension, we tried to approach the senses that underlie the provision of adult education in Brazil, setting it as a place of dispute between different ideals of education and society projects. The educational proposals for youth, adults and seniors - marked by repeated denial for their rights - could have followed the educational hegemonic ideology  or oppose her. Depending on the concepts in which they are based, we find its realization as an instrument for reproduction of the current social order or of its intervention and transformation. If the neoliberal guidelines have pointed to the reduce the educational processes as social control, subjecting them to the logic of market economy, Popular Education, as presented in Paulo Freire's thought and his practice, points to the power of educational processes as a place for the people's social participation and democratic spirit development. It is considered that the EJA doesn't mean only schooling, but also refers to knowledges built in various areas from family to community life. However, inside or outside school, the senses with which it is held may determine their proximity or distance from the students interests and conditions, as postulates the laws. Thereby, between conquest and realization of educations right, a large field has been open, in which diverse and unstable projects and programs are permeated with interests and conceptions often opposed to those whom they are intended. In this sense, popular participation could encourage and guide the educational proposals in a more adequate and continuous form, becoming not just education "for" the people, but "with" the people and "of" the people. That participation could also promote critical reflection on the social functions assumed by the school and retrieve it while the place of dialogue, transmission and collective construction of knowledge, based on popular culture and on social actors experience.

Keywords : Youth and Adult Education; Popular Education; Popular Participation.