Chapter 5: Social Representations of School Failure in Brazilian Public Schools: A Framework for Understanding and Change

As we stand on a street corner in a large metropolitan city in Brazil, we watch a group of boys and girls. It is early afternoon and these children should be at school. Instead they are on the streets. We watch as two of them wash a car across the street and happily whistle a tune. The others stand around, staying away from the sun and waiting for the traffic light to change. As it turns to green they all approach the cars, knock on the windows and ask the drivers for change. Most of the drivers do not even bother lowering their windows. They may be either afraid the children would have a blade of some kind to attack them or else they are irritated to be disturbed. Poorly dressed, often barefoot and dirty, these are children who frequently live on the streets or are sent to the streets by their parents to earn some money. One of the children approaches us—a skinny little girl, with beautiful curly black hair and big black eyes. She is selling some kind of candy. I buy some and pay her. She quickly calculates the correct change. I ask her why she is not at school. She says she needs to work. Besides, school is boring and she is not good with “school stuff,” she adds.