“Todo ano é essa peleja”: educação do campo, mundo rural e hierarquias sociais no município de Campina Grande-PB.

Abstract

In the last two decades, the recognition of the right to education for rural populations has been one of the most important achievements recorded in the Brazilian educational scenario. However, social and educational asymmetries between rural and urban areas persist despite the advances that have been made. The research sought to reflect and explain how such asymmetries remain, supported by the logic of coloniality present in the social imaginary, in the historical trajectory of education in Brazilian society and in the sociability between different social groups, which are reinforced in the mentality of individuals in a unique way based on their social place and structured habitus. We analyzed, through the experience of rural education in the municipality of Campina Grande-PB, in which I have been working as an educational supervisor in rural schools since 2008, how forms, symbols and actions express social hierarchies and differentiate the rural from the urban, even though both are constituent parts of society. Following the qualitative design for the methodology of this research, we combined theoretical reflections, bibliographic and documentary review with field research inspired by situational analysis involving observation and interviews. Direct observation took place at events called pedagogical training and at a municipal school in the district of Catolé de Boa Vista, a rural area of Campina Grande. As collaborators in the interviews, we had interlocutors involved in public education policy actions in the field within the institutional framework of the municipal Department of Education and the school community. We saw that the dichotomy that marks the rural/urban relationship influences the way in which individuals act on the school, located in rural areas, attributing less importance and value to it. Based on the evidence of hierarchical relationships, it was possible to show the conditions under which rural education lives and is carried out, with so many absences and faults that we group into the following dimensions: symbolic hierarchies (invisibility, indifference, silencing) material and social hierarchies (lack of water , lack of transport, lack of road maintenance, lack of an adequate physical structure of the school building) which highlight forgetfulness, abandonment and an idea of sub-citizenship, diametrically opposed to the efforts of the agents who live and manage the school. Showing that there are also ruptures and resistances.