Migração e fracasso escolar: uma escola colonial no contexto histórico do êxodo agrícola gaúcho (1941 – 2012)

Abstract

Based on statistical analysis and comparisons of Final Results Minutes from a school in the locality of Picada 48 Baixa/RS, it was possible to observe that there was a large discrepancy between school performance results, characterized as good achievement and academic failure in different periods and distinct audiences, namely, students from local families of German origin and Protestant religious confession, with a relatively stable socioeconomic situation, between the years 1941 and 1981 and students from migrant families, of various ethnicities, but also with a German predominance, and varied religious confessions and socioeconomic conditions, between the years 1982 and 2012. This work aimed to verify the relationship between school performance results and migration, considering social, cultural, and economic conditions in both scenarios. Thus, we sought to analyze whether, within this context of migration, school failure also concerned characteristics supposedly intrinsic to students or whether it was the product of a capitalist and elitist logic of class reproduction. As a research of a historical-descriptive nature, the theoretical framework was based on dialectical historical materialism, also relying on the conceptualization of cultural capital, habitus, and ethos by Bourdieu and Passeron. Conditioning scholar processes served as a tool to support the genesis of the discipline based on Foucault's concepts. The methodology applied was based on quantitative methods since the research used data collected in Minutes of Final Results and bibliographic review, and qualitative, through written questionnaires with former directors and online questionnaires with former students, and study and analysis of documents (registration forms, call books). This dissertation has been organized in a systematic approach, divided into two parts: the first refers to the History of Education in Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul, seeking to show how, from the very beginning, the educational system presents a structure designed to serve only a privileged elite portion while the vast majority of the population found themselves deprived of education and the emergence of a series of theories that justified the educational failure of these people. Thus, the importance and legacy of German immigrants, in terms of education for Gaucho history, were analyzed. The second part refers to the research and analysis of data collected at the studied school. In addition, it is possible to comprehend that migration, inserted within a capitalist and exclusionary economy, influenced school failure rates in the sense of forcing students to put material needs first within their priorities, relegating education to a secondary role, however, without losing its ethos, which perpetuated through the valorization and habitus of school and work ethics.