From Inequality to Social Exclusion: What Do Children Say About School?

Departing from the contribution of the Social Studies of Childhood, this research aimed to understand children’s relations with school based on their economic, social, and geographical belongings. In order to understand the way children from a big city in Southern Brazil build their relations with school, 36 children between 11 and 13 years old participated. The research was developed in two public schools in two neighbourhoods which are very different in terms of family income, violence taxes, access to cultural equipment, public green spaces, public and social freedoms, among other characteristics. Both contexts have big inequalities, and one of them is a context of high social vulnerability. Through participant observations, focus group discussions, and registers in notebooks, it was intended to comprehend not just what school represents to the children but also which elements structure their childhood experiences. The listening to children’s voices revealed that school is important for both groups. For the children who attend the school in the border of the city, school represents future, learning, the possibility to be together with their friends, and also a leisure space. For the children who attend the school in the city centre, the institution is their main social space where they can be together with their friends. Children from the city center school also acknowledge that the inequality between public and private schools is a social injustice. In a country constituted by strong social inequalities, children’s knowledge contributed to comprehend how territoriality, poverty, and social exclusion are related and how they shape the relations children establish with school. This chapter aims to discuss how social inequalities create different school representations, highlighting the specificities in each context.