A experiência escolar de mulheres na educação profissional integrada à EJA: relações de saber em sala de aula

Abstract

This dissertation examines the school experience of women in the National Program for the integration of vocational and basic education for youth and adults - PROEJA. These women, who have different study and work backgrounds, meet at a certain classroom and start establishing relationships which are mediated by school-related knowledge - which Charlot describes as relationship with knowledge. Therefore, these women generate a specific school experience, in which they activate, confront, produce and (re)signify experiential knowledge of different kind. This study has tried to comprehend, from the perspective of the gender studies, the way through which women have historically learned how not to value their knowledge. Based on an ethnographical study, the aim of this research was to analyze the distinct knowledge relationships established by these women in their school experience. Data was collected with the support of participant observation, field diary and personal interviews. A group of students from the 4th semester of the Business Management technical course from PROEJA was accompanied throughout a school semester. From the first contact on, 14 interviews were done with women from this group. The results indicate that the experiential knowledge of these women is originated from the types of activities in which they were involved outside school and throughout their lives: work, family, church, means of communication and public areas of the city. The relationship with knowledge in PROEJA, according to the data collected during the field work, shows tracks of a circulation of knowledge from different types of experience: the attempt to get closer to school knowledge by referring to the knowledge present in daily life; the tension between school events and experiential events; the silence in relation to specific knowledge; the marginal presence of women knowledge in class and other situations that reaffirm the dichotomy and hierarchy between school knowledge and experiential knowledge. Our thesis is that the analysis of knowledge relationships established by women highlight experience and, therefore, brig to light school the experiences and knowledge of these women from PROEJA. As a result, we indicate some elements to the construction of educational processes that lead to emancipation in the field of the Education for youth and adults (EJA) integrated to Vocational Education.