O educativo da comunidade/assentamento do Movimento Sem Terra na constituição das escolas: o caso do Assentamento Missões (1996–2023) – Francisco Beltrão/ PR

Abstract

This dissertation work focuses on the educational aspect of the community/settlement of the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in the establishment of schools, taking as a case study the Missões Settlement (1996–2023), in the municipality of Francisco Beltrão/PR. The research was conducted in the Graduate Program in Education (Master's) at the State University of Western Paraná, Francisco Beltrão campus, in the concentration area of Education and in the research line Society, Knowledge, and Education. The research problem presents as its central question: what was the educational aspect of the MST community/settlement in the establishment of schools in the Missões Settlement, in Francisco Beltrão/PR, during the period from 1996 to 2023? Thus, the objective was to understand this process in the referred context and period. The investigation becomes relevant because it addresses the relationship between community and education in the constitution of the public rural school in the Missões Settlement, and can also serve as a theoretical reference for future research. Its achievement is justified by its contribution to giving visibility to the Missões Settlement and its schools, by presenting the history of this community's struggle for its implementation, a process that constituted itself as educational and differentiating for these school institutions. The theoretical framework is based on various authors, aiming to deepen central categories such as agrarian reform settlements, community, rural public schools, education, and the Landless Workers' Movement. The research used document analysis of the report from the Systematization of Experiences and Social Practices of Popular Education, which reconstructs the history of the Irmão Cirilo Municipal School and the Paulo Freire State Rural School. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants in the process. The results indicate that the educational aspect of the MST community/settlement, in the establishment of the schools of the Missões Settlement between 1996 and 2023, consisted of the production of a collective formative process, in which social struggle was constituted as an educational principle. Over time, even in the face of tensions arising from institutionalization, interference from municipal and state governments, and internal contradictions within the settlement, the community remained an educational subject, intervening in and transforming the school. The results indicate that the educational aspect of the MST community/settlement, in the establishment of the schools in the Missões Settlement between 1996 and 2023, consisted of producing a collective formative process, in which social struggle was constituted as an educational principle. Over time, even in the face of tensions arising from institutionalization, interference from municipal and state governments, and internal contradictions of the settlement, the community remained as an educational subject, intervening in and transforming the school. The MST pedagogy, participatory management, and struggles for improvements and for a rural public school demonstrate that the school was shaped by the social, political, and cultural practices of the community. Thus, the settlement's educational aspect is manifested in the collective capacity to form individuals and, simultaneously, to shape the school itself as a space of struggle, resistance, and the production of meaning.