INTERRUPTED SCHOOL PATHS AND LITERACY OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADULTS: MEMORIES OF WOMEN FROM THE “EDUCATE TO EMANCIPATE” PROJECT IN JACERUBA (JAPERI)
Rural Education; EJA; Memory; Literacy of Older Adults; Educar para Emancipar Project; Popular Education.
Illiteracy among rural women in Brazil stems from historical, economic, and gender inequalities that shape everyday life and compromise schooling trajectories. This research investigates the experiences of three women in my family — Natalice (grandmother), Zilá (mother), and Sunamita (aunt) — residents of Jaceruba, Japeri-RJ, seeking to understand how their memories and educational paths are intertwined with Youth and Adult Education (EJA) in rural contexts. In dialogue with popular education and rural education, the study also examines the Educar para Emancipar project, implemented in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which enabled Natalice’s literacy process, with her own daughters as teachers.
Methodologically, the research is based on the comprehensive interview (Ferreira, 2014; Fátima, 2006), conducted in two stages, combined with memory reconstruction (Halbwachs, 1990; Bosi, 2007; Braga, 2000; Santos, 2009; Soares, 2018) and document analysis. The interviews were conducted with three main participants — Natalice, Zilá, and Sunamita — and, complementarily, with Natalice’s sisters, Talita and Maria, who contributed to filling gaps in her trajectory due to the worsening of her memory after an aneurysm. The procedures emphasized attentive listening and respect for personal narratives, allowing experiences to be re-signified and contextualized in the present.
The results highlight recurrent barriers to schooling access, such as early agricultural work, the long distance between home and school, precarious transportation, and the overload of family care. At the same time, they reveal the potential of literacy in old age, expressed in autonomy, strengthened community bonds, self-recognition, and emancipation. It is concluded that the experiences of Natalice, Zilá, and Sunamita reaffirm the centrality of contextualized EJA policies that respect the time, identities, and knowledge of rural communities, and confirm literacy as both a right and a pathway to active aging, social inclusion, and the intergenerational transmission of memories.