Rhymes at school, verses in history: a study about young peoples poetical creation and ethno-social affirmation at a public school in Sao Paulo

Author(s)

Maíra Soares Ferreira

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-08-04

Examining board members

Monica Guimaraes Teixeira do Amaral; Iray Carone; Herom Vargas Silva

• Advisor: Monica Guimaraes Teixeira do Amaral

Abstract

This dissertation is the result of a research and intervention for seventh grade students in a classroom at a public school in Sao Paulo. These rhythm and poetry young lovers descend from Afro-Brazilian and Pankararu indian families who came from the countryside of Pernambuco and settled down in Sao Paulo after the 1950s (developmental phase) to work as civil construction workers. The school where the research was conducted is placed in Morumbi and serves the students who are Real Park slum dwellers and whose life histories are linked to the migration experience mentioned. We observed that though this communitys history is known, this wasnt proven integrated to the school culture the tendency of which seemed to deny the students are Northeastern Afro-Indian descendent. Therefore, the objective of this study was not only to investigate but also to provide the students with ways to dialogue with their recent past by means of their poetic-musical manners. In order to do so we employed an ethnographic research in Brejo dos Padres [Priests Marsh] region in Northeastern Brazil where most families came from, and we found out a very rich popular poetry production to supply us with material for some intervention in class. This task about cultural hybridity counted on students and teachers participation emphasizing processes of ownership, recombination and reinvention as presented in cordel, rap and repente demonstrations. We understood that mixing up different styles of poetic production to turn them into their own production was a way for these social groups disregarded by society to answer to demands of subjectification and ethno-social affirmation. (AU)