Famílias sem moradia e mães protagonistas: construindo relações de pertencimento com a escola

Abstract

In late 2017 and early 2018, homeless families occupied an abandoned and unfinished building in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Belo Horizonte. The arrival of children from these families at EMEI has had a significant impact on the school community with their presence, and their bodies read as socially simple. It attracted glances of control and prejudice from some families already attended at school. These families began attending school but did not feel they belonged to the school environment. This study had as objective to investigate the Antonieta de Barros urban occupation as an unequal social group and to articulate actions that could promote and strengthen the sense of belonging to the families of this collective with the EMEI school community. The theoretical discussion is based on the conceptualization of unequal social groups by Miguel Arroyo, which contextualizes the situation of inequalities existent in the social collectives and their other forms of knowledge construction, the other pedagogies. Judith Butler's idea of the ineluctable bodies, those who are so devoid of survival conditions that society is not worth fighting for, is used. This study discusses the protagonism of black mothers, poor, homeless, and without work, that struggle for better living conditions for their children daily. The Brazilian afro principles, the union, and the cooperatives are fundamental values in the relationship between the protagonist mothers, one taking care of each other and their children. Nilma Lino Gomes' studies contribute to the reflection on being black in these spaces, and the prejudice experienced by these families and their children. From a situation that occurred at EMEI in 2019, the research was conducted from meetings, actions, and interviews with families already attended at school and families from the urban ocupation. The contact with the mothers and their belief in the fight for rights brought reflections and changes to the researcher’s practice in the classroom. However, this study also enabled that the researcher could appropriate her role in the daily struggle for higher quality education, caring about individuals and their needs. Keywords: Homeless families, protagonist mothers, unequal social groups.