Vol. 47 No. 2 (2022): The right to Education in rural areas: trajectories of struggles, resistance and challenges

The proposal of this dossier on the “Right to Education in rural areas: trajectories of struggles, resistances and challenges” aims at reflecting on the experiences of Education in rural areas in Brazil, as well as in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Brazil, this experience has already reached two decades of struggle, materializing itself in a relevant set of Public Policies, achieved through the prominence of peasant movements. Such policies included the development of Education in the areas of Agrarian Reform (PRONERA); initial and continuing teacher education (Bachelor's Degree in Education in Rural Areas; KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOIL and SCHOOL OF THE SOIL); the elaboration of specific textbooks (PNLD CAMPO); the formation of Rural Youth (AGRARIAN RESIDENCY and YOUNG AGRARIAN RESIDENCY), among others. However, with the coup and the rise of the extreme right to power, the public funds destined to the execution of such policies were almost totally extinct, as were the instances of collegiate deliberation linked to them, in which there was a strong participation of civil society. Further aggravating the framework for the execution of such policies, came the challenges imposed by the COVID 19 Pandemic, which had a great impact on guaranteeing the right to education of the peasantry. From this complex context, this Dossier aims at producing an overview of the current situation of the struggles for the right to Education in rural areas, through analyzes of the implementation of different public policies that materialized it, emphasizing the challenges that hover over its continuity in this historical moment of serious threats to public education and the existence of peasants, who face an unreasonable increase in violence by agribusiness on their lands; territories and identities.