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Working with Children on the Streets of Brazil: Politics and Practice

NCJ Number
187910
Journal
Child and Youth Services Volume: 21 Issue: 1/2 Dated: 2000 Pages: 1-223
Author(s)
Walter de Oliveira M.D.
Editor(s)
Doug Magnuson, Jerome Beker
Date Published
2000
Length
233 pages
Annotation
This journal describes a range of educational practices for working with the subaltern youth on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and the emergence and contributions of street social education in the Brazilian environment.
Abstract
In Latin America, where the levels of poverty are exceptionally high and widespread, the phenomenon of street children is both a moral and political issue. It has become difficult to protect the rights of the children of the poor, and to provide these children with health, education, and other social and human services. Street social education emerged as a response to the social needs of the children of the streets and was, from its beginning, a part of a wider progressive educational and social movement committed to the promotion of children’s rights. It is designed to disrupt those forms of social relations between people that appear to be normal but found to be functional for the stability of a capitalist society. Street social education in Brazil has become an important resource in social intervention, because it assumes the full political nature of working with the destitute and integrates this belief into its practice. The author tells the history of street social education, the need for intervention through understanding the principles of street social education, while offering an overview of the phenomenon of street children in the context of a society that struggles to overcome oppression and abuse. The journal notes that street social education is not a cure for all the social problems but it can contribute to a better understanding of what the cure might be. References