Peripheral relations in school: Bolsa Família Program’s incumbencies and failures

Abstract

The paper discusses the peripheral relationships within a state’s public school: circumstantial and singular occurrences defi ned by poverty and actual interference for improvements in the living conditions of the population. These are preliminary results of an investigation of ethnographic inspiration conducted in a school located in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul State), where 75% of the children are from families receiving regular payments from the government (Bolsa Família Program - Family Grant). Based on daily field notes, observations and open interviews, we tried to understand to what extent the Bolsa Família Program, which aims to inhibit child labor and keep children in school, is contributing to the improvement of process of teaching and learning in that place. The theoretical base of this paper is based on the work of Zygmunt Bauman. The study shows that, in that context, the Bolsa Família Program is sometimes criticized by the teaching staff of the school, due to its welfare characteristic and it is sometimes used as an excuse to ignore students’ absences, under the argument that the school cannot cause conflicts with the families. In both cases, the people of the place are being harmed: first, because the income redistribution has been a way of discursively disqualifying their existence and second, because when children have their absences ignored, the commitment of the family with the teaching process is automatically being dismissed. Furthermore, the results of evaluations, such as “Prova Brasil”, that analyzes socioeconomic and educational information, are misinterpreted because the low scores tend to indicate the ineffectiveness of a program that was not actually introduced in the school context.

Keywords: cultural studies, peripheral relations, Basic Education, Family Grant, “Prova Brasil”.