A política da educação de jovens e adultos em São Leopoldo/RS, na perspectiva de seus sujeitos

Abstract

This research is focused on the analysis of how the Youth and Adult Education was constituted, as a policy of raising the educational level in the municipality of São Leopoldo, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, viewed from the perspective of those intertwined in its implementation. The research was developed based on the period from 1996 to 2010, involving the creation and implementation of a project called Learning is Possible - Literacy and Post-literacy Project in São Leopoldo-RS, dated 1996, until the expansion and consolidation of Youth and Adult Education as a mode of education in the municipality. The research was focused on the subjects who experienced the space-time of this mode, giving voice to them, to reveal the real subject who studies and works in this area. Thus, we listened to educators who work in teaching young people and adults; to understand the different concepts that form the world of school, and we also listened to the students, to understand them in their diversity and to grasp their needs and desires in relation to time-space school, work, and other issues. Regarding the involvement with the locus of the research, we seek to be consistent with the choice of qualitative methodology since it is grounded theoretically and dialectically, which enabled us to understand the subjects who live the municipal policy of Youth and Adult Education of the municipality, so it was possible to reveal and interpret what was being said and, in turn, the unsaid. Thus, the category of contradiction cemented our work. We used the content analysis, based on the theory of Bardin (1977) as a tool for interpreting the documents that were used. This choice is based on its critical approach and its recognition of the premise of the researchers active role in knowledge production. Another relevant methodological element was the choice of the policy cycle approach, formulated by Stephen Ball and Richard Bowe, to understand local policies in relation to national and international policies and the importance of the actors in this context. We signaled that when the educational practices of Youth and Adult Education incorporate in the school routine a self-creative approach to work, i.e. work as a production of life, and not work subordinated to the labor market is more likely to contribute in to the civic life of teachers and students. The research presents the possibility that local public policies of Youth and Adult Education may turn into perennial state policies that contribute to the strengthening of basic education, on the perspective of assuming the humanizing status of education, which is made up through life by formal, non-formal, and informal education. Thus, public policies of Youth and Adult Education, exerted by the bias of democratic governance and human and social rights, have on the educational practices the locus to build possibilities of a human and social education, from the perspective of overcoming the understanding of the required, regulated, and fragmented school education. The subjects within this context, who make the Youth and Adult Education in their daily lives, are in search of an ethos, which enables an inclusive education and provides counterpoints to the school that excludes. In addition, thanks to the research, we point out that the Youth and Adult Education developed by the municipality of São Leopoldo is nowadays a state policy of raising the educational level of primary education, indicating thereby the possibility that the municipalities may play an active role in this area, without forgetting, however, the Unions and state responsibility in ensuring the right to education for all, and at all ages.