BETWEEN THE HOE AND KNOWLEDGE: PRONERA AND THE CONFRONTATION OF CHILD LABOR IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
PRONERA; pedagogy of alternation; child labor; rural education; child labor in rural areas.
This research project aims to analyze the relationship between the National Program for Education in Agrarian Reform (PRONERA) and the fight against child labor in rural Brazil. Child labor, understood as work performed by children and adolescents below the age permitted by law, which prevents them from fully experiencing childhood, is characterized as a structural phenomenon marked by its normalization in rural contexts, the invisibility of practices, and the fragile connection between education and social protection. PRONERA, created in 1998, emerges as an educational alternative aimed at the agrarian reform population, based on the pedagogy of alternation, which integrates school time and community time. The project is premised on the idea that a significant portion of PRONERA beneficiaries have experienced child labor, and that the program is one of the main instruments for democratizing access to higher education in rural areas, with the goal of promoting technical training, critical awareness, and valuing rural identity. The formulated problem questions how PRONERA relates to the fight against child labor in rural areas, with the general objective being “to analyze the relationship between PRONERA and child labor in rural areas.” The specific objectives are to understand PRONERA through its origin, history, and foundation; investigate the conception of work within the pedagogy of alternation; and, finally, analyze, through materials that structure PRONERA’s proposal, the debate on child labor in rural areas. From a procedural-methodological perspective, a qualitative and explanatory approach is adopted, primarily based on bibliographic research and document analysis.