Youth and Adult Education in Countryside School

black peasant women, emancipation and resistance

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the 25 years of evolution of Countryside Education in Brazil, highlighting its historical roots, struggles, and achievements, while at the same time problematizing the place that Black peasant women occupy or do not occupy in Youth and Adult Education (Educação de Jovens e Adultos - EJA) in annexed classrooms of a rural school. They are students, EJA teachers, and members of a group of women from the Cerrado. The qualitative study was conducted through bibliographic research, interviews, discussion circles, and the experiences of one of the researchers who grew up in this context. The results showed that EJA teachers are overburdened and overworked, facing a triple workload by balancing multiple school functions with other jobs. Therefore, there are still remnants of Rural Education; however, Countryside Education stands out for preparing for life, combining education and work. The struggles for Countryside Education converge with the demands of Black peasant women in pursuit of emancipation, promotion of food sovereignty and nutritional security, and preservation of the Cerrado. Finally, the research suggests the need for public policies, including teacher training that considers the reality of Black peasant women, thereby strengthening EJA and Countryside Education[1].

[1] Translator’s Note: Brazil is a country with significant agrarian issues and faces a vast range of inequality when it comes to education away from major urban centers. Thus, there is a distinction between Rural Education and Countryside Education. In Brazilian Portuguese, there are two terms to designate “rural education”: rural education, which is a category of education that merely attempts to replicate urban education without considering the particularities of people living in rural areas. In the early history of Brazilian education, the owners of large farms provided poorly structured school groups to give the minimum education to workers without any state approval, solely to avoid losing workers; and countryside education which is considered an education that respects the culture of the rural people and takes into account the planting and harvesting periods, the knowledge of the rural community, the tastes, dreams, and experiences of people living in non-metro areas. It is a type of education more focused on local struggles and was born from social movements.