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Revista Lusófona de Educação

Print version ISSN 1645-7250

Abstract

ABRANTES, Pedro  and  TEIXEIRA, Ana Rita. Socio-educative intervention in marginalized territories: agents of local development or keepers of the school order?. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2014, n.27, pp.27-41. ISSN 1645-7250.

The article discusses conceptions and practices in use under the public program Educational Territories of Priority Intervention (TEIP) - launched in 1996 and including 10% of the national elementary education network in 2010 - vis-à-vis the school-community relationship, focusing on professionals allocated to socioeducative offices created in the schools included in this program. Drawing upon the results of a research project in seven areas defined by the educational administration as “priority territories” and a Maters Thesis in four of them, using the “case study” methodology (including documental analysis, surveys, interviews, focus groups and direct observation), the text outlines the way local TEIP projects - and especially professionals employed in schools under such program - were usually oriented towards “deviant” pupils’ follow-up and extracurricular activities implementation. Such process included the emergence of new professional profiles and logics of action within schools, based on values as trust, tolerance and individualization, in order to build strong relations with “deviant pupils”, producing a positive impact on schooling environment pacification (reduction of violence and absenteeism). However, being an official goal of the program and often used as a legitimizing concept in intervention projects, local development hardly generates effective and consistent actions; therefore, in broad terms, these projects may be interpreted as a way to reinforce social and school order, instead of challenging them. The dominant idea - the contribution of schools to local development results from the reinforcement of social order and academic scores - is highly controversial. Based on a critical approach (Bourdieu, Sousa Santos, Teodoro, among others), the article is organized in four sections: (1) theoretical discussion, focusing on the concepts of schooling order, local development and socio-educative intervention; (2) methodological presentation, describing both studies and the linkage between them; (3) socio-educative intervention in TEIP projects, based on documental analysis, as well as a survey to teachers and parents in the seven territories; and (4) occupational profiles and “logics of action” characterizing those professionals, from in-depth interviews and direct observation with four of them, with different profiles (psychologist, sociologist, care assistant, social educator). In conclusion, it is argued that, in order to break deprivation and reproduction circles, a transformative policy of schooling and community structures is required, not just a “compensatory” or “reparatory” one.

Keywords : school; community; reproduction; TEIP; inequality.

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