Os processos de acesso e permanência nos cursos PROEJA do IFRJ: entre percalços, demandas e potencialidades

Abstract

Education as a right of all, established in the Federal Constitution of 1988, and the consolidation of Youth and Adult Education (EJA) as a modality meant to attend individuals with specific characteristics, are not satisfactory to promote changes in the history of this public's access to quality education, in order to guarantee schooling not acquired during childhood. The present research aimed at comprehending the factors that hindered or favored the access and permanence of the young and adult students who returned to school, to join courses of the PROEJA Program of the IFRJ. This investigation recontextualizes politics in practice, under the influence of texts which present the guidelines and the policy strategies correlated to the Federal Program. The impediments and motivations that impacted the students' access and permanence were identified by means of indicators established for this purpose as well as the perception of managers, teachers and students involved with the PROEJA. This information - obtained via quantitative and qualitative methodologies in questionnaires, interviews and focus groups in the four IFRJ campuses that offer the Program - helped to highlight the experiences underwent during the program's development period. The theoretical foundation of the research was based on the studies of Stephen Ball, in the so-called Approach of the Policy Cycle; in Basil Bernstein's concepts; complemented by Carmo and Reis, who brought empirical contributions and theorized about the significances involved in the access and permanence at school for young and adult students. Other researchers who have investigated the PROEJA, professional education as a whole and the EJA, based on the perspective of the right to Education for all, within the scope of public educational policies, were also relevant references for this work. It was found that strategies to favor processes of access and permanence were not satisfactory to overcome cultures already established in the IFRJ, however they have fostered understandings which have led to novel practices. The research has pointed out the need for a school environment which values not merely the cognitive dimension of young and adult workers - the program's favored public - but likewise their life and professional experiences, enhancing the social recognition that these individuals pursue in returning to school