O trabalho infantil e a educação de jovens e adultos na perspectiva de adultos trabalhadores

From a historical point of view, the education of the working class was not always considered necessary and, therefore, was not always defended in the legal texts. These discussions began to move forward in the legal framework due to changes in the labor market, which required the worker to have the necessary professional qualifications to perform the most diverse tasks. This text aims to discuss the Youth and Adult Education as an educational policy aimed at the young and adult population that may have had schooling hampered by work. It is a quantitative-qualitative study, in which 131 adults, of both sexes, came from two educational institutions of a medium-sized municipality in the State of São Paulo. The data were obtained from the use of an international questionnaire, submitted to analysis in the SPSS software and in the assumptions of Content Analysis. We sought to analyze the Youth and Adult Education as a modality of Basic Education aimed at the population that did not have access to the school in the right time of childhood and adolescence, as well as discussing child labor beyond a generalist and universalist view on the phenomenon. The results indicate that, despite the legal, structural and organizational progress of the Youth and Adult Education, it has not yet been established as an effective educational policy to serve the working class and that it is possible to find child labor situations in the most diverse spaces, both for the social and economic aspects that perpetuate the inequalities and the presence of cultural and ideological characteristics that justify its existence. De um ponto de vista histórico, a educação da classe trabalhadora nem sempre foi considerada necessária e, por isso, nem sempre foi defendida nos textos legais. A discussão sobre esse assunto começou a avançar no âmbito legal em razão das mudanças ocorridas no mercado de trabalho, que passou a exigir do trabalhador a qualificação profissional necessária para a execução das mais diversas tarefas. Diante disso, o objetivo com este texto foi discutir sobre a Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) enquanto política educacional dirigida à população jovem e adulta que pode ter tido a escolarização prejudicada pelo trabalho. É um estudo de cunho quanti-qualitativo, no qual participaram 131 adultos, de ambos os sexos, oriundos de duas instituições de ensino de um município de médio porte do Estado de São Paulo. Os dados foram obtidos a partir da utilização de um questionário int