Social Movements in Brazil and their Educational Work

Abstract

Using a distinction first proposed by Alain Touraine between historic and social movements, Ghanem's review of grassroots initiatives in Brazil argues that, despite differences in composition and aims, movements such as the landless rural workers, indigenous groups, and the women's movement in Brazil have attempted to shift the current socioeconomic order toward a new equilibrium – a process that is, however, not yet complete. In Ghanem's view, these movements are best described as historic movements. Addressing their educational aims, the author finds that they tend to fall into two types: (1) the self-provision of knowledge related to the set of problems that gave rise to their movement in the first place; (2) the striving for access to knowledge that is due to them as citizens and yet not given to them by the state. Often, social movements in Brazil are obliged to offer educational services through their own resources, services which are characterized by precarious conditions and which make the right to quality education still a distant dream.