Educação de Jovens e Adultos na escola pública: em busca de processos de educação popular como espaço tempo de aspirações democráticas do conhecimento

Abstract

This study is part of the theoretical-practical construction that the school is one of the territories of Popular Education, in which it is constituted as a democratic opening of knowledge, and that Youth and Adult Education, which intertwines its history itself with the history of Popular Education in the fifties and sixties, constitutes a space for the conquest and experience of rights. In this context, our general objective was to understand the context of Youth and Adult Education in the public school, in relation (or not) with Popular Education, in search of apprehending / recognizing possibilities, limits and conditions of development. To achieve this objective, the following specific objectives were developed: to analyze how Youth and Adult Education is being developed in public schools in João Pessoa; perceive elements of Popular Education (or their absence) in the context of in public schools in the city of João Pessoa; to present and analyze an experience of pedagogical practice as a research foundation, based on the principles of participatory research, in a class of Youth and Adult Education (guided by Popular Education) in the city of João Pessoa. These objectives are justified, in view of the historical process that involved Youth and Adult Education and Popular Education in Brazil and that Paraíba was a pioneer in practices and studies on Popular Education. We then argue that based on PE as the guiding concept of educational practices, from the perspective of a form of problematizing education in the confluence of everyday knowledge and systematized knowledge of school education, it is possible to reframe and boost Youth and Adult Education as a Popular Education process, in search of democratic aspirations of knowledge and of the classroom / school space. To follow the paths of this research, in addition to a survey of the state of the art, we carry out documentary and field research, in which we seek to portray the possibility of developing pedagogical practices in Youth and Adult Education based on Popular Education. This purpose was possible from the development of an educational practice in Youth and Adult Education as a research foundation, based on the principles of participatory research. We refer to this experience in this paper as “transforming a classroom experience into research practice”. Our findings demonstrate that from the development of a more horizontal form of education, of a dialogical teaching-learning process, of a problematizing pedagogy, there is evidence of constructions of elements that mobilize the learning subjects of the students. We perceive evidence of the concept of Popular Education at school, although not systematized and within a context of dissemination carried out through common sense. In the way of recognizing that it is possible to reframe Youth and Adult Education as an Popular Education process and understand that Popular Education as a guiding concept of Youth and Adult Education practices is configuring processes of democratization of knowledge, we find a place of Popular Education in the Youth and Adult Education of public schools. This research represents that even with the varied difficulties for effective school education in the popular segments, public school is an achievement and should be thought of as a place for the democratization of knowledge. With this study we intend to give visibility to the Youth and Adult Education of public schools in João Pessoa and contribute with reflections and practices on Popular Education as a possibility to mediate democratic practices in public schools.