A Educação Escolar e a Sociedade em Itaituba-PA no Processo de Expansão da Economia Extrativista Mineral

Abstract

Schooling is discussed here as research object in the municipality of Itaituba-PA, problematized on the relation of this town with the socioeconomical context generated by gold exploitation. Firstly the historical construction of Itaituba town society is presented after rubber and gold times. The land where the town of Itaituba is located today used to be occupied essentialy by indigenous peoples – Mundurukú and Maués -, suffering colonization by Europeans, mainly the Portuguese. As labor relations have changed along the years and so has the educational process – maily the institutionalized – trying to answer new organizational demands. Itaituba has been built up from actions that didn‟t prioritize social development, as well as in other regions where extractive exploitation prevails in economy. The study presents a general overview of education from 1970 to 1995, based on available data, highlighting the quantities of school units, enrolled students and teachers working in the education system. The methodology consisted of a historical study that tries to understand the relation between society and education after changes in the economic base, however, paying closer attention to local aspects of the perceptions of some subjects about the school evolving path of Itaituba. The question that guides this research questions how the development of education occurred during the mineral extractive period in the municipality of Itaituba-Pa. Thus, semistructured interviews were used with teachers who work in that town, aiming to raise information about the history of local education, trying to identify whether School Education reflects or not nuances of labor exploitation by capital. We have highlighted the extrativist gold process – consequently its evolution -, where miners make up the workforce exploited seamlessly by capital, and, for the illusion of getting rich fast, s/he stays longer, making up a family or helping form a village that claims school education but that are not put under appropriate circustamces for this service. And, when they‟re implemented, schools start being part of system that feeds the economic one. By doing so, this study confirms the understanding that schooling in the burguoise way legitimates the dominating class interests, and those values start being internalized instead of existing a critical awareness about work exploitation by capital.