A minha vida seria muito diferente se não fosse a matemática: o sentido e os significados do ensino de matemática em processos de exclusão e de inclusão escolar e social na educação de jovens e adultos

Abstract

The present inquiry deals with a case study which is concerned to the students of a public school as part of a special program of Young and Adult Education. Such students were registered in 3rd. and 4th. stages of that program, whose curricular format corresponds to the four last series of Junior Basic Education. These stages concentrate matter, space and time in order to develop four school years in two. The school is located in a geographic area occupied by slums whose community lives in a real condition of social exclusion. That region sits close to two public important universities. Young students as well as adults in that context were studying in that school just because they lived a school trajectory marked by social obstacles and other impediments to study and work at the same time, so that they could not improve their schooling grades without interruptions that had hindered them to conclude their Basic Education. For these reasons I aimed to investigate what kind of elements in Mathematics Education can contribute successfully for the desirable inclusion of these students in schooling regular activities, as well as elements that create effective exclusion of school as a phenomenon that inversely acts in order to give feedback to the inevitable process of social exclusion of those students. So, I assumed the construction of this inquiry in a narrative way related to the particular context of that school, while involving and interacting with the subjects of this research, which are students, teachers and other employees of the school. I considered their life stories and the way they consider the pedagogical events in their school living, especially those related to Mathematics Education. Therefore, I aimed as objectives of this research to produce other directions, other relations and nexuses that could answer 'how ' and ' why ' the considered criteria of analysis contribute to bring out the process of schooling either inclusion or exclusion. These analyses make possible to evidence the terms of imminent exclusion, detached either by the school indifference or by the teachers misformation to teach those students. Besides that I noticed the disrespect for the life-history of the students that distorted a clear pedagogical vision when it is supposed "adequate curricula summary" and "equality of chances" in the comparison of the former excluded students with the legally said as students in regular education".