Cultural practices of reading and writing, more than formal teaching and learning processes, have for time immemorial been a controversial and complex theme in the human and social sciences because of their political scope and implications for social life and for each individual in particular. This issue of the Revista Brasileira de Educação [The Brazilian Journal] (RBE) focuses on these practices from the perspective of educational research and its historic, sociocultural, cognitive and emotional aspects. The various articles directly or indirectly problematize the fact of having access or not to these practices, of being denied these immaterial goods, or not, revealing the repercussions on the conditions of the literate or the illiterate, of professional insertion or exclusion, the division between erudite and popular knowledge, the perception of the urban and of the rural, the opposition between civilization and barbarity.
Correlated to the attributions of the school to promote the universalization of reading and writing, other themes of equal interest, such as authority and power, run through the articles and renovate the debate, focusing on the concepts of autonomy and empowerment that impose themselves in late modernity. The issue returns to the contributions of Paulo Freire and Célestin Freinet about education as a democratic space of cooperation. The later notion, selected as the main theme of the II Biennale of Education (Paris, 2015), is inserted in a new "culture of action"and is rich in opportunities for educational research about collective action, coparticipation, experience and accompaniment.
The first article, Rural readers: ethical-practical appropriation in the meanings attributed to reading, by Lisiane Sias Manke, presents a reflection on reading practices in a rural environment, based on Roger Chartier's concept of appropriation and on the theoretical contributions of Bernard Lahire, who proposes analyses on a scale in which the social is individually addressed. The study of the trajectories of six men and women from rural areas, all more than 70 years old, who read daily, allows sketching another image of reading practices in the social world and demystifies differences between urban and rural cultural habits. In the narratives of these assiduous readers, the most common themes present an approximation between schemes of experience and ethical practical appropriations of reading.
The adult population and reading are also central in the text Appropriation of school literacy practices by youth and adult education students, by Fernanda Maurício Simões and Maria da Conceição Ferreira Reis Fonseca.The authors discuss how youth and adults, as subjects of culture and knowledge, use knowledge related to the uses of written language to give meaning to school literacy practices. An understanding of these forms of knowledge assists in the perception of the sociocultural dimension of teaching situations and, therefore, of the need that they be based on a dialog with the students' learning processes.
Once again from an adult perspective, the "New Opportunities to Read" and "NOL+": two case studies in Algarve by Catarina Doutor, Helena Quintas, Carlos Miguel Ribeiro and António Fragoso, discusses an important adult education project in Portugal. The New Opportunities to Read, in addition to introducing the certification of knowledge and the professional qualification of adults, seeks to improve the target population's literacy level. The procedures for empiric data collection included documentary research and semistructured interviews with directors and coordinators of twocenters that participate in the partnership. The results reveal that the New Opportunities to Read (NOL+) improved access to information and cultural activities, promoting the development of literacy and civic participation. At both centers, learning was understood as a daily act that is inseparable from participation in collective life, which leads to conclude that the literacy practices examined promote consciousness in the Freirean sense.
Closing this group of four texts about cultural practices of reading and writing is the article "Fiftieth anniversary of 'Angicos' 40 hours": the story, fresh in thememory of youth and adult education, by Francisco Canindé da Silva and Marisa Narcizo Sampaio. It examines the political-pedagogical experiment coordinated by Paulo Freire in the 1960s in the city of Angicos (RN), which sought to teach reading and writing in 40 hours, to 33 rural workers, artisans and factory workers, adopting principles of cultural valorization, politicalization and emancipation of the learner. The interviews conducted with 13 students and coordinators of the culture circle, who participated inthis experience, trigger the idea that the energy that is still alive in their memories resides in the principles of democratic access to reading and writing practices, to social equality and conditions for a more dignified existence.Their recollections reveal their joy at having learned to read and write in an experience in which they saw themselves as coauthors.
A second group of four texts takes a historical perspective and begins with the article Intellectuals of the Imperial Amazon and wisdom of illiterate populations during the Cabana Revolution (1835-1840), by Magda Ricci and Luciano Demetrius Barbosa Lima. It discusses how some literate people and politicians from the Amazon understand the illiterate culture of the Cabanagem revolutionary movement that took place in the province of Grão-Pará between 1835 and 1840. The article investigates the concepts and prejudices that permeated the participation of non-literate populations. The work Motins políticos by the historian and imperial politician Domingos Antônio Raiol, is the main source for research about the motivations for the Cabana movements from the perspective of the imperial order. The article concludes that to discuss the wisdom of the Cabanos - even through Raiol's distorted vision - is to criticize a type of formal education, understanding how much it can disqualify the world's informal knowledge and wisdom.The text is an invitation to similar questioning in the context of other popular insurrections in Brazil in the 19th century.
Continuing the studies of literacy, the publication and use of school books are issues raised in the article Theoretical and methodological paths for the investigation of textbooks: the contribution of the Centro de Investigación MANES by Gladys Mary Ghizoni Teive. It analyzes the theoretical routes taken by the Centro de Investigación en Manuales Escolares [The Text Book Research Center] in Spain, during its twenty-year existence, emphasizing two perspectives, that of the "enunciators" and the "receptors"of the school texts. For the first group it emphasizes studies conducted of the analysis of the textual and iconographic content, and for the second the incursions of researchers at the center about the contexts of production and use of textbooks. On one hand it highlights the use of the methodology of intertextuality, which articulates the study of the book with sources coming from contexts of reception.On the other hand its contribution to the resolution of one of the most difficult questions concerning textbook production and use: that of the methodology of the use of books in classrooms and their consequent approximation with the history of school culture.
The concern for public education and teacher education is addressed by Rogério Guimarães Malheiros and Genylton Odilon Rêgo da Rocha in the article The French Debate about Public Education and its development in Brazil. The analysis focuses on the Rapport de Condorcet, published in 1792,and reveals some historic, political, ideological and conceptual aspects to help understand the modern foundation of the debate about the organization of public education systems and teacher education, during the 19th century, including in Brazil.
High school education is analyzed in the article Polytechnic and integrated training: conceptual clashes, political projects and historical contradictions of Brazilian education by Dante Henrique Moura, Domingos Leite Lima Filho and Mônica Ribeiro Silva.This is a bibliographic study in the field of sociology of education that conceptually discusses the concepts of "polytechnical" education and "integral human education." It is based on the understanding that the objective to be achieved, considering the perspective of establishing a just society, is omnilateral, integral or polytechnical education, promoted by integrated high school education. The conclusions indicate that given the difficulties and conflicts that mark the Brazilian educational trajectory, the defense of emancipatory educational processes must be reinforced, highlighted by integral education integrated to high school learning.
The third and final group of texts discuss pedagogical theories, the place of authority in school education and notions of autonomy, empowerment and cooperation.The proposal of Elisabete Xavier Gomes, in her text Who's afraid of pedagogy? Contibutions of contemporary education theory to resist "returning to the basics" is to analyze attacks on pedagogy and come to its defense.The article is based on a set of theoretical approaches that defend a more humane and less humanist education. It uses as supportthe work of Jacques Rancière (2002) and the adventure of Jacotot, the ignorant master,to question the explanation of the educational act and the inequality that it establishes and that is found within it. It turns to Jorge Larrosa (2002) and the concept of experience to question activity as a sacred place of modern pedagogy and joins with Gert Biesta (2006, 2010) to attack the need for continuity and conclusion in educational processes, and propose a pedagogy of interruption.
José Sérgio Fonseca de Carvalho, in his article, Authority and education: the challenge of tradition's decline, argues that discourses alternate between rejection and restoration of a supposedly lost authority. It emphasizes that despite theoretical and programmatic differences between these two trends, they have a common aspect: they do not distinguish the obedience produced by a relationship of authority from that which emerges from violence or an attachment to legality. The dilemmas and impasses linked to the decline of authority in educational relations require understanding the specificity of this type of relationship and of regimes of temporailty that guide the connections that societies establish between present, past and future.
Continuing this theme, the article Education and ambiguities of the autonomization: for a critical pedagogy critical of the promotion of the autonomous individuals by Manuel Gonçalves Barbosa, discusses the confrontation between education and concerns about autonomization and analyzesthe ambiguities to which this confrontation gave origin. By presenting a contra-hegemonic concept of autonomization, it proposes the bases and coordinates for the promotion of the autonomous individual, from the perspective of a critical pedagogy, which is simultaneously humanist, emancipatory and transformative of the individual and the context. The article concludes by pointing to guidelines for the construction of this critical pedagogy of autonomous individuals, found in the lines of individual emancipation and social transformation.
The cooperative conception of Célestin Freinet is addressed in the article School podcast's cooperative potentials in a Freinet's perspective, by Eugênio Paccelli Aguiar Freirewhich investigates the use of podcasts in Brazil, using Freinet's concept of cooperation as a foundation for the elaboration of educational references and the development of cooperative school podcasts, based onthe appropriation of productive relations in the Brazilian podosphere in the context of formal education. The conclusions present the results of these procedures for the development of a set of references for educational projects that try to work with cooperation by means of the podcast in formal education.
Desiré Luciane Dominschek and Ana Laura da Silva Teixeira present a review of the book Pedagogia histórico-crítica e a luta de classes na educação escolar[Historical-Critical Pedagogy and the Class Struggle in School Education], organized by Dermeval Saviani and Newton Duarte, which in keeping with the themes addressed, suggests that education alone is not a redeemer of society, but its importance in the process of human emancipation cannot be denied.
The thematic specificities, methodologies and interpretation of educational reality presented in the articles in this edition contribute to a critical analysis and allow deepening the production of discourses and social practices concerning contemporary Brazilian education. To the degree that they confer visibility to scientific production in the field, focusing for example on the tension between inclusion and exclusion of individuals in different processes of their education, these articles reveal the relevance of educational theory for understanding this tension in the socio-cultural context. In our recent history, in which some sectors of Brazilian society have demanded that the field of education adopt a utilitarian pragmatism, distancing itself from perspectives based on emancipation, criticism and social transformation, the articles published in this edition represent a counterpoint to this logic.
Good reading to all.
The Editorial Board
Carlos Eduardo Vieira
Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
Antonio Carlos Rodrigues de Amorim
Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil
Cláudia Ribeiro Bellochio
Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil
Laura Cristina Vieira Pizzi
Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Maceió, AL, Brazil
Marcelo Andrade
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Maria da Conceição Passeggi
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
Marília Gouvea de Miranda
Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, GO, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro, October 2015
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
Oct-Dec 2015
