Um incentivo a mais pra mandar os filhos pra escola: apreensões da condicionalidade da educação em famílias beneficiárias do Bolsa Família no Conjunto São Miguel

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate how beneficiary families of the Bolsa Família Program (PBF) apprehend the education conditionality, which requires a minimum school attendance for children and teenagers from 06 to 18 years. Empirical data were obtained from a qualitative field research, monitoring five families living in a neighborhood called Conjunto São Miguel, located in Caucaia – CE - Brazil. The research was conducted from May 2013 to February 2015, using as approach the systematic and unsystematic observation, registered in a field diary, open and semi-structured interviews recorded, informal talks and own image files. Among the considered theoretical propositions are those developed by François Dubet (2008), Bernard Lahire (1997; 2002; 2011), and Maria Alice Nogueira (2002; 2010), used as basis to the discussions of the families trajectory and daily activities, demonstrating the social practices and stress around the implementation of the conditionality. The gathered data revealed that families realize the conditionality as an "incentive" for permanence of the children in school, indicating that the requirement came to reaffirm a previous practice already done by the families, even before the eligibility to the PBF. The field experience revealed that, prior to the desire of receiving the PBF´s monetary value, the school attendance occurs from the belief in formal education as being an element to overcoming poverty. The data also revealed that the condition of poverty experienced by the studied families assumes characteristics beyond the lack of income, which is the single indicator of eligibility considered by the Program.