Cultura caipira no ensino: uma análise da sua (in)visibilidade nas escolas

Abstract

The caipira is a fundamental part of Brazil's historical formation, yet their identity is rarely addressed in educational institutions beyond the representations present in June festivals. This assumption is reinforced by the fact that definitions of the caipira are still associated with a context of prejudice and exclusion. Thus, this research aimed to investigate the representations and manifestations of caipira culture in schools through the analysis of normative documents and school June festivals. The theoretical foundation traced the historical and social trajectory of the Paulista nuclei in colonial Brazil, based on authors such as Ribeiro (1995) and Brandão (1983), combined with the description of cultural practices through Cândido (2010), Ferreira and Matos (2018), and Guerra (2022), the latter focusing on the contemporary caipira. The methodology consisted of qualitative, documentary, and exploratory research (Severino, 1979), applied to the analysis of the BNCC (National Common Curricular Base), the Paulista Curriculum, and the São Paulo state's Student Book. As a result, it was observed that caipira culture is treated as a cross-cutting theme in the BNCC, while the Paulista Curriculum advances by presenting more direct terms that encompass the diversity of cultural manifestations in the state, yet still without explicit mention of the caipira Simultaneously, the Student Book shows a significant gap in including caipira culture as a constituent identity of the state of São Paulo, reducing its presence to a strictly economic dimension. Faced with curricular gaps related to the caipira identity, the June festivals were analyzed as a possible compensation for this absence. Through the thesis of Campos (2007), associated with the concept of cultural industry (Adorno, 2009) and the spectacularization of popular culture (Carvalho, 2010), it was found that the festivals perpetuate a stigmatized view of the caipira. It is concluded that the current approach maintains the invisibility of caipira culture, making its valuation dependent, above all, on teacher initiative.