Bolsa-escola e inclusão educacional em Jaboticabal (SP)
Abstract
This work studies the School Stipend Program in order to verify whether or not it has
achieved the goals of guaranteeing that children attend school and acquire literacy. In
addition, it examines whether or not school helps the social integration of children from lowincome
families. In this regard, this research project about the School Stipend Program also
analyzes the extent to which this government program on a federal level can be considered a
strategy for the social inclusion of poor children and adolescents. The categories of the State,
Social Policies, State shape the understanding of the questions of social inclusion and
exclusion in a capitalist society. The empirical study carried out between 2005 and 2006
focused on the School Stipend Program in the city of Jaboticabal, State of São Paulo. This
study followed the administration of the program from its inception, collecting data that
allowed the researcher to get to know the schools involved in the program and to choose the
one that had the largest number of participants in the program. After contacting the selected
school, the administrators and nine teachers maintained a close relationship with the students
who benefited from the Program. After identifying this children, six families were selected to
be visited and interviewed. Among the most important results of this study was the finding
that the Program is important for the everyday life of these families, reflected in the
relationship of the family and the children and adolescents with the school and in the
reaffirmation of the fact that the the school remains a reference for the education of
individuals. At the same time, the School Stipend Program doesn´t provide significant
changes in the expansion of the social network of family support. This income supplement,
regardless of the fact that it has been considered modest, has not solved the challenges that
limit the possibilities in the social realm since they are the result of structural problems
unemployment and low income among poor families. Finally, the school is a reference for
students, an essential social instrument for the strengthening of the social support network of
the most Brazilian children and adolescents who live on the fringes of vulnerability in a
constantly precarious state that can produce social integration.