Educação de jovens e adultos, escolarização e trabalho: sentidos construídos em histórias de vida

Abstract

This study aimed to understand, based on the life histories of young students enrolled in Youth and Adult Education (EJA) in Pato Branco (PR), the meanings attributed to schooling and work in their personal and social trajectories; to identify the main factors that led to school dropout at the regular school age; to examine the reasons, interests, and needs that motivated the return to schooling at this stage of their lives; and to explore their future perspectives and their relationship with the resumption of schooling. The study is justified by the humanizing potential of the processes of listening to, recording, and disseminating the life histories of EJA students, particularly for the students themselves. This is a qualitative, exploratory study. Its methodology is Life History research. Data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews with two young EJA students from Pato Branco, which were analyzed using narrative analysis. The findings indicate that the interruption of schooling was mainly related to the lack of family, school, and state support, as well as to experiences of violence in everyday school life. The decision to resume schooling emerged as a way to expand opportunities for work and income and to strengthen self-esteem. Work appears simultaneously as a material necessity and as a space of contradictions, in which processes of exploitation are revealed alongside the search for recognition. It is understood that EJA plays a central role in reconstructing the meanings attributed to schooling, establishing itself as a space of welcoming, recognition, and humanization. The analyzed trajectories show that the development of a territory cannot be understood solely through economic or productive indicators, but also through the concrete living and schooling conditions of its subjects. In this sense, the persistence of trajectories marked by school interruptions and early entry into work reveals social limitations of local development, while the existence of Youth and Adult Education points to possibilities for expanding human capabilities and social participation.