As creches como reivindicação e políticas públicas em Nova Iguaçu (1975-1988): a ação política no governo de Francisco Amaral

Abstract

This dissertation is part of research line 2: Education, School and its Social Subjects of the Postgraduate Programme in Education, Culture and Communication of the Faculty of Education of the Baixada Fluminense and deals with the movement of struggle for day-care centres in the city of Nova Iguaçu-RJ and the achievements in this field between 1975 and 1988, taking into account the dialogue established between social movements and the municipal government, which unfolded in the construction of the first public day-care centres in the city, during the interim government of Francisco Amaral in 1988. Through documentary research (digital newspaper archive, Correio da Lavoura, personal collections, collections of school institutions, archives of the Diocese of Nova Iguaçu, MAB's collection and Diário Oficial of Nova Iguaçu) and field research, the work involves the historical reconstruction of the object of research through the analysis of the interweaving of two historical processes. The first of them is the movement to fight for the right to public daycare, constituted under the perspective of confronting the structural problems of society and transforming reality, which, in the city of Nova Iguaçu, is organised mainly from the Base Ecclesial Communities (CEBS) and the Amigos do Bairro Movement (MAB). The second historical process is the management of Francisco Amaral as intervenor. In this direction, his biography is investigated, focusing on his relationship with the struggles of social movements and his political trajectory, in articulation with the discussion about school education, during the civil-military dictatorship and in the period of the "democratic" transition and the problematic of early childhood care in the city. In the intention to apprehend the particularities of the public policies for early childhood education in Nova Iguaçu, it is taken as reference the contributions of Florestan Fernandes, under the historical-dialectical materialism, which is, in its relation with the social totality of the dependent capitalism and its development in Brazil, which materializes in the historical picture of deep structural inequality and that manifests itself quantitatively and qualitatively in public education. Through this research, it is verified that, after thirty-five years since the construction of ten municipal day care centres in 1988 - period when Nova Iguaçu included the municipalities of Belford Roxo, Japeri, Mesquita and Queimados - little progress has been made in the question of new constructions and in the offer of vacancies for early childhood, Five of the eighteen Municipal Schools for Early Childhood Education (EMEI) that exist today originated as municipal day-care centres in 1988, linked to Social Assistance, and which, as of the year 2000, became the responsibility of the Education Department.