O que dizem os/as educadores/as sobre a escolarização de crianças e adolescentes em situação de trabalho: um estudo na cidade de Maceió/AL

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the understanding of educators about the schooling of children and adolescents in work situations, based on the conception that these professionals have about work and its consequences in schooling. To carry out this study, a qualitative research with bibliographic and documentary study was developed. Secondary data were obtained from the reports of the Child Labor Eradication Program - PETI Volante in the city of Maceió/AL. The field research relied on the application of questionnaires with the educators (teachers and pedagogical coordinators) working in 03 municipal schools. We conceptualize work, as an exploration intrinsic to capitalism, and work carried out by children and adolescents as a cause and consequence of poverty and social condition of families, which subordinates these small workers to exhausting and degrading days and deprives them of their right to education. Through the literature review, we verified the social and legislative evolution regarding the problem of the insertion of children and adolescents in work, highlighting the historical aspects that gave rise to the emergence and perpetuation of this form of violation of rights. Then, we address the social programs implemented through the social assistance policy, especially those of income transfer with conditionalities, seen as strategies to face poverty in Brazil. We situate the issue of children and adolescents inserted in the most diverse forms of work developed in the streets of Maceió/AL, identified through the service of social approach of PETI of the Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance - SEMAS between the years of 2016 to 2018. In the last part of the text, we present the research participants' conception of work carried out by children / adolescents and its consequences on schooling. The results of the present research reaffirm that the work carried out in childhood or adolescence is a reality that persists and represents a serious social problem that exposes children and adolescents to dangerous situations that are harmful to their physical and intellectual development by putting their permanence at risk in school. The fight against poverty and social and educational inequality and the offer of an education policy that enables social change continue to be challenges to be overcome in order to effectively combat the work carried out by thousands of children and adolescents in Brazil. We understand that this reality steals their childhood and puts them away from effective legal and state protection.