O ensino de geografia e a tessitura de sentidos sobre o trabalho informal: entendimentos a partir de uma sequência didática construída junto com estudantes de uma Escola Pública Municipal no Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

In recent decades, the number of informal workers has grown significantly, both in Brazil and elsewhere on the planet. In view of this, this research aims to study the dynamics present in the Santa Cruz neighborhood, which in the last fifteen years has had a significant portion of its population experiencing such a reality of precarious work on a daily basis. Therefore, the theme of this work is to investigate how the teaching of Geography can help in the construction of meanings about informal work, from a municipal public school, located in the city of Rio de Janeiro and, in this way, contribute to the lives of the subjects involved. Such research is justified, as there is a relevance and opportunity to investigate how education can contribute to understanding the phenomenon, as well as analyzing the possible effects of precarious working conditions that began in the 1990s in Brazil and have been intensifying with the counter-reforms (labor and educational) implemented since 2016. The general objective of the work is to capture the meanings attributed by public school students and their families about informal work, based on Geography classes taught in elementary school. As specific objectives, the idea is: to investigate which senses guide students' way of thinking and how they behave towards them; understand whether, through teaching Geography, students will be able to learn about the socio-spatial transformations of the neighborhood they live in, as well as the reality of informal workers and, finally, build an educational product, in order to be a form of assistance in understanding of the processes involved in the topic. As a methodology, research is proposed as an investigative and educational tool to overcome the transmission of knowledge. The path, therefore, will be through articulation between the PBL methodology (Problem Based Learning), the Theory of Social Representations together with other theories that deal with the object, as well as the use of projective techniques related to the Theory of Social Representations and Discourse of the Collective Subject, seeking meanings that subjects have about this phenomenon. As results, we observed the complexity of the conceptualization of informal work and how much the representations produced by students enriched the process of collective construction. An increase was noticed in the initial understanding (via evocation of words) until the final activity (use of images) and how geographic thinking was constructed when studying the phenomenon of informal work. We also had the fabric of a didactic sequence, in which the knowledge coming from students was considered, inserted in the context of a public school, within the 7th year of elementary school classes. As a product, there was the joint and participatory creation of an e-book, which will bring together all the strategies and the path taken throughout the collective development of the proposal.