The myth of dysfunctional family and the relationship between families of working class and the school: a anthropological reflection

Abstract

The chief objective of this research is to propose an interpretation of relationship between working-class families and public schools in São Paulo, searching the conflicts between the moral patterns about the "dysfunctional family" that circulates in the speeches of institutional agents of the school and the dynamics and family practices of residents of a popular and peripheral neighborhood in São Paulo, Perus (slum Recanto do Paraíso). We start from the hypothesis of that social reproduction's strategies of working-class families are not limited to their economic and political features - as was described by anthropology of the 1980s -, containing as well strategies of moral and cultural reproduction of family by schooling. I will test in this research some concepts applied by anthropology about the different patterns and family practices to explain and to describe the relationship between the family and the schools: patriarchal family and family individualization; matrifocality; conflict between blood-relation relatives and in-laws relatives; "quintal"/"patio"/household/street. For this research, will be observed practices and everyday situations, as well as the speeches in performer moments, such as gossip in the neighborhood about families and schools, the speeches of teachers in the meetings educational and the break. I will choose some families for observe the values and projects for the children, the leisure activities and the family routine.