Educação do Campo, uma apreciação geográfica: o caso da E.M.E.F. Antônio Lourenço da Silva - Sítio Fortuna, Seridó - PB.

Abstract

This paper discusses the Rural Education as a national educational policy specific to the population of rural areas. This type of education was born in the context of the struggles of rural social movements and, from the decade of 1990, entered into projects and government education programs. However, it was only on November 4, 2010 that the policy for rural education had, indeed, a breakthrough, with the approval of Decree n ° 7352/2010. To understand this issue, we turn to the question of Brazilian agrarian space which, historically, was the stage of disputes that reflected directly in the education of the rural population. On one side, those who longed for an education with emancipatory character – rural social movements – and on the other side, those who diffused an education based on capitalist profiles because of a supposed progress in this space – the landowners and agribusiness. In this paper, we analyze the reasons for discrepancies between what is guaranteed by law and what actually exists in education concerning the rural population. We also seek to understand how education has come to this population, analyzing if, in terms of methodologies and content, the place of the student has been incorporated into the teaching of Geography and, consequently, if its diversity and identity have been respected/valued or replaced by standards imposed by the dominant culture, based on the capitalist mode of life. As empirical cut of the research, we chose the reality of the municipality of Seridó-PB, taking as a basis the Antônio Lourenço da Silva Municipal School, situated on the site Fortuna. To achieve the proposed objectives, the methodology used was the review of the literature about the Rural Education, the place, the teaching of Geography, identity and diversity, as well as research on specific legislation on this education modality. Furthermore, we undertook field research, in which, with the utilization of semi-structured questionnaire, we realized interviews in the Secretary of Education of the city and with the teachers of EMEF Antonio Lourenco da Silva. On the other hand, due to the characteristics of the studied phenomenon, we chose as approach of it the qualitative research perspective. At the end, in terms of methodologies and content of Geography, we found that there are different proposals for the countryside of those applied in the education in urban area, but, if we take into account the established guidelines by law, it is still far from being the ideal for the rural population regarding the approach of the place of the student and, therefore, the diversity and identity of them.