Os sentidos da mediação na prática pedagógica da educação de jovens e adultos

Abstract

This dissertation is about the practices of pedagogic mediation that constitute the teaching/learning relationship in Brazilís Youth and Adult Education program (EJA). The problematics of mediations encompasses the organization and development of the teacherís activities, and leads them to reconsider their role and competences. Through mediation, teachers develop skills and strategies that allow them to deal with this modality of teaching in a way that is different from the one used in regular teaching. The main question for this research is: What is the sense of mediation that accounts more adequately for the complexity of youth and adult education, and how does the practice of mediation creates oportunities to develop studentís skills for critical thinking? The object of this study is to investigate the necessary circumstances for mediations to be effective in standing up to the complexity of EJA, and how such mediations create conditions for developing critical thinking and educational praxis. The study uses a qualitative approach, involving a theoretical review, and complemented via empirical observations in an EJA school in PalhoÁa, Santa Catarina, Brazil. These observations were conducted via document analyses, questionaries, and semi-structured interviews, among other methodologies. For the analysis and interpretation of the data, we used the hermeneutic-dialectic perspective, since we consider this perspective to be the one that most precisely aprehends the practical and historical dimensions in which mediations are elaborated. Content analysis is also used in a critical, qualitative perspective. There search results sugest several necessities. Among them, are the importance of acknowledging the studentsí everyday knowledge, as well as teachersí practical knowledge in order to potentialize, via dialogs, the practices of mediation. EJA demands a specific methodology that influences the identities of the actors involved: Teachers and students both need to learn how to teach in the EJA context.