Sujeitos escolares, escola e o ramo da indústria calçadista em Nova Serrana, Minas Gerais

Abstract

This study aims to understand the relationship between the schooling process and child labor in the footwear industry in Nova Serrana, Minas Gerais. To this end, it was based primarily on Marx, followed by Conde (2012), Souza (2014), Búfalo (2008), Oliveira (2014), Custódio and Veronese (2007), Marin (2012), Marchi (2013), Ferraz, Gomes (2012), Diniz et al. (2012), Cardoso (2012), Ramalho and Mesquita (2013), Kassouf (2007), Arroyo (2015), among others. We analyzed determinations that emerged in the research process, guided by the research problem, using bibliographic and documentary study as the investigative path, as well as the analysis of empirical data from reality. Interviews were conducted with school subjects: three 9th grade students, two teachers, two education specialists and a school principal. Thus: we searched through the Academic Production Balance (BPA), research on child and adolescent labor, in the period between 2019 and 2024, described the main causes of child and adolescent labor and its effects on the schooling process; presented the principles of the State and the public educational policies that aim to combat child labor present in the Brazilian reality; and, finally, analyzed the reality of child and adolescent labor in the footwear industry and school education in the investigated municipality. The research indicates that: there is a gap between current legislation and empirical reality; the emphasis that legal documents give to Brazilian schools conceals the exploitation of child and adolescent labor that continues in Brazil today and in the reality investigated; social and educational policies such as the “Bolsa Família Program”, the “Pet-de-meia” program and “O Aprendiz Legal” that have been in place in recent years are compensatory, and are aimed at mitigating the enormous losses historically suffered by the working class due to the ever-increasing predominance of social inequality in our country; schools remain an instrument at the service of the ruling class, with the aim of qualifying workers for the job market, as in the case of the apprenticeship law, and are disconnected from any revolutionary perspective.