CULTURE CIRCLES AND EJA: PAULO FREIRE’S PRESENCE IN FEMALE WORKERS’ EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

The article seeks to reconstruct encounters and re-encounters with Paulo Freire’s references in order to understand his influences on educational practices in Culture Circles, mobilizing reflections on the education of working people. As theoretical and methodological support it brings the references of participant observation and the reconstitution of experiences through testimonies, as well as documentary and bibliographic sources. The concepts of individual and collective memory, history, memories, and their relationship with life in society helped to understand the meanings produced by the analyzed experiences. Among these meanings, it was possible to perceive the path of resignification of the struggle for adult literacy in the defense of public schools for workers with Youth and Adult Education (EJA, from the Portuguese, educação de jovens e adultos).

Keywords Paulo Freire; Culture Circles; Youth and Adult Education; Public School; Memory and History