São João na escola: práticas educativas para manter viva a cultura

Abstract

The present work, entitled “São João at School: Educational Practices to Keep Culture Alive,” is part of the research line Pluriculturality, Interculturality, and Interdisciplinary Practices of the Graduate Program in Education and Educational Practices (PPGEPE) at the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA). The investigation arises from the realization that, although the festas juninas constitute one of Brazil’s most expressive forms of intangible cultural heritage, they are still treated superficially within schools, generally restricted to commemorative events and scarcely articulated with the curriculum. In view of this gap, the study is guided by the following central question: how can São João be integrated into the school environment as an interdisciplinary educational practice that promotes identity, belonging, and cultural preservation? The general objective is to understand how educational practices surrounding the celebration of São João, both in the formal space of the curriculum and in extracurricular actions, contribute to valuing festas juninas as identity and cultural heritage, articulating culture, territory, and meaningful learning. The theoretical framework dialogues with Paulo Freire (1996; 2011), in understanding culture as a reading of the world; Brandão (1986; 2002), in recognizing education as a social and community phenomenon; Candau (2012; 2016) and Fleuri (2018), in discussing critical interculturality; Hernández (1998; 2000), Fazenda (2011), and Moura (2018), in defense of project-based pedagogy and interdisciplinarity; Morin (2000; 2002) and Moraes (2020), in debates on complexity; and Cuche (1999), Câmara Cascudo (2001), Campos (2007), and Chianca (2009), whose works illuminate understandings of popular culture and junine traditions. The research adopted a qualitative approach, grounded in spiral action research (Thiollent, 2011), carried out at Escola Municipal Leôncio Pires Dourado in Imperatriz, Maranhão, and supported by Content Analysis (Bardin, 2016). Data were produced through semi-structured questionnaires, participant observation, conversation circles, and field notes involving 8th- and 9th-grade teachers and students. The analysis revealed religious and cultural tensions, curricular challenges, fragilities in the school’s PPP (Pedagogical Political Project), and, simultaneously, powerful formative experiences emerging from interdisciplinary practices, creative ateliers, quadrilha rehearsals, workshops, and actions involving the child protection network. As a technical-scientific outcome, an Educational Product was developed: an Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Project for São João, inspired by Project-Based Pedagogy (Hernández, 1998), which systematizes a set of cultural, critical, and creative educational practices, proposing the “festa junina” as a curricular integrating axis, a social protection device, and a strategy for valuing cultural heritage. The study concludes that when São João enters the school as a planned, dialogical, and intercultural pedagogical practice, it re-enchants the curriculum, strengthens bonds, calls forth student protagonism, and promotes meaningful learning anchored in identity and collective memory. Thus, the celebration transcends its recreational character and becomes a formative action, a space of cultural resistance, and a legitimate field of knowledge production, capable of keeping culture alive and expanding educational horizons within the Brazilian public school context.