EXPERIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS DE CRIANÇAS QUE VIVEM EM UMA COMUNIDADE DE FUMICULTORES

Abstract

This study is based on the historical and cultural perspective, which has Vygotsky as its main representative. For this frame of reference, the person is constituted in the social relations mediated by others, by language and by instruments. Therefore, being acquainted with social experiences from a given group enables the reflection over development and the understanding of ways of being in the world. Thus, considering children born and raised in rural communities, more specifically in tobacco farming communities, show different ways of being a child when compared to children born and raised in the cities, with different kinds of activities, school, leisure and family life. Understanding such experiences enables us to think of the ways of thinking within several levels, such as the school, health services, the workspaces these children are inserted when they reach the age to start working and leisure activities offered by the region. Thus, this study aims at investigating the social experiences lived by children born in rural areas, specially the children from the tobacco farming area of Rio Corrente, municipality of Irati, in the State of Paraná. In order to conduct this study, the link and close relation between the children, parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, the local market owner, the church`s catechist, members of the community and other residents of the area was closely observed. The School of São Valdomiro Xavier, located in the urban center of Irati, where children from the studied community go to, was also closely observed. The study was of qualitative nature and allowed to build and analyze the practices and habits of children, based on data collected from October 2013 to June 2014. Data collection and registration procedures included a field diary, photography, the observations made, the semi-structured individual and group interviews and twelve children from zero to twelve years of age, along with their relatives and members of the community in general. Accounts and evidences have been selected in order to demonstrate everyday experiences in places where children are found in and which are determinant to their development. The Hermeneutic-Dialectic method of inquiry was used for this study. The set of data allowed the organization of the material in three different themes: how children play in the countryside, the educational process of children and the knowledge of life in the countryside: tobacco farming and domestic chores. Based on the collected data and theoretical referential which permeated this study, it was possible to verify that children who live in the countryside grow up amidst nature, having plenty of space for group games, living together with different customs while they are in the city school, participating in the domestic chores of their families. The way these children relate with time and space is different than children from the city. For them, the relation between playing and working are connected and passed on by the family as a way of preserving the customs. When at school, children from rural areas carry out experience exchanges different than the exchanges taken when they are in the countryside, and also consolidate the apprenticeship mediated by the teacher. It was noticed that children also understand about pesticides and how tobacco can be harmful, live by what they are told by their parents, have a different financial condition due to the fact families receive more money for planting tobacco once a year, and also learn from an early age to stock food, since they usually live far from the bigger supermarkets in town. Finally, this analysis has also considered the importance of family and school as components of the society they are inserted in. The obtained results allow us to affirm that the way of life of this community children is the result of the joining of traditions lived by their parents and grandparents passed on by time and urban ways of life lived outside the community, mostly at school.