| dc.description.abstract | This is a study about the school experiences of children on the move in Duque de Caxias, which is one of the 22 municipalities that compose the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region. The study consists of qualitative child-focused research, with children and community members, aimed to explore the school experiences and challenges of six children, of which four are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and two are immigrants from Angola. Children are from eight to 18 years old, and they attend two elementary schools in the same neighborhood. Besides then, three pedagogical advisers, one immigrant mother, and an employee of the municipality Secretary of Education took part in the study. Also, a group of Brazilian children partook in two activities. However, they do not have the same status as the other participants in this study. Their voices were only included because they evidence important aspects of the studied context, enriching the analysis. This study is situated in the theoretical-methodological scope of the childhood studies field, which implies the consideration of children as competent social beings. The empirical data was collected during August and September 2019 through unstructured observations, focus-group discussion, semi-structured interviews, drawings, and sentence-completion. Moreover, secondary data was used. The participants live in an impoverished part of the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region, strongly shaped by violence. Children experience harassment and racial and ethnic discrimination by peers in school. However, children resist in this context, and even facing several difficulties, they present good schooling performance, which can be considered a form of resistance and agency. Moreover, children’s lives and their school experiences are shaped by the values of the Congolese and Angolan cultures and by the generational space that children occupy to the adult group.
Keywords: child-focused research; school education; racism; xenophobia; Brazil. | |
