Trabalho e educação escolar no sistema prisional: história, políticas, contradições, rupturas e permanências

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand the historical trajectory of the institutionalization of formal education within the prison system and its materialization in the Brazilian context. The research p roblem seeks to understand how the process of historical and ideological foundation of formal education in the Brazilian prison system was constituted, considering the transformations in penal and educational legislation and their relationship with historical changes in the economic system. In order to achieve this objective and address the research problem, the following specific objectives were established: to map and analyze academic production available in the CAPES Repository on formal education in the prison system, from the perspective of the History of Education; to historically understand the institutionalization of education in the European prison system between the 16th and 19th centuries, highlighting its articulation with labor as an instrument of social control and organization of punishment; to understand the reconfiguration of the prison system in the American continent, emphasizing the transition from punishment to the regeneration of the incarcerated individual through the articulation between labor and education; and to reconstruct the historical trajectory of Brazilian penal and educational legislation, from the Imperial period to contemporary neoliberalism, unveiling the political logic that guides the inclusion (or exclusion) of formal education in the prison system. The methodological approach is grounded in historical-dialectical materialism, aiming to understand the insertion of formal education within the context of prisons and the contradictions of the capitalist system. Part of the development of this research was strengthened by a sandwich master’s period in England, contributing to the expansion of academic dialogue and international discussion on prison education. It is argued that, although legally established, education in the Brazilian prison system remains conditioned by peripheral capitalism, being tensioned between its status as a right and its punitive function.