A movimentação das elites escolares de Alfenas/MG: trajetórias, estratégias, expectativas e escolhas escolares em duas instituições privadas de ensino

Abstract

The present inquiry deals with educational paths of students during their last year of high school from two private schools in Alfenas/MG in 2016. Looking at a crucial moment of those paths, as presented by Nogueira, C. (2004), the key spot of this search is the possible inter-relation among the habitus of the subjects, the cultural inheritance from their families and the strategies adopted by them once they have to set and materialize their higher school plan (course and institution to be chosen). Considering both advances and limits of different approaches about such themes, the studies by Pierre Bourdieu and by some Brazilian Education Sociology authors have been taken as major theoretical references. Hence, the general goal is analyzing and understanding the educational paths of those students, pointing to features which enables to inquiry the inter-relation between the habitus of the subjects and the strategies adopted by them once they have to set and materialize their higher school plan. Besides, by the end of the search, it is expected the following particular goals to be reached: inquiry and analyze the socioeconomic and cultural profile of their families, bearing in mind the relation between both higher and lower class families and the school; analyze the speeches from participants of the school environment, such as managers and teachers, about the pedagogical practices they adopted and also about the school culture aspects; identify e analyze the influences of socialization (family, school, peer groups e media) on setting their habits and on the definition of their school plan; understand the role of Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (Enem) e do Sistema de Seleção Unificada (Sisu) in how the students conduct their strategies to complete their study plans. Beyond using the literature review about the theme in question, the following steps were also applied in order to collect data: a) participant observation; b) application of socioeconomic and school questionnaire; c) semistructured interview performances; d) evaluation of content statistics; e) qualitative evaluation of content. From dialogging with the relevant literature, it is possible to understand that students from school 1 come from a homogeneous social group, locally known as high society members from Alfenas who are privileged economically and socially, and often holders of “important” last names. Furthermore, the group in question seems to mobilize a number of strategies for maintaining the structure and volume of their capitals, mainly economical and social ones - including strategies regarding the school – could be observed, even if it was done in an initial way. On the other hand, it was possible to understand that students from school 2 constitute a heterogeneous social group, in terms of fuzzy economical capital as well as regarding cultural inheritance of the families. Thus, from the dynamics of school 2 it could be observed that some families were part of “the new middle class” (Nogueira, M.A., 2013), product of a wider process of social mobility. The families were from different layers of middle classes and seem to have particular relations with the school as well as particular experiences from it, valuing it and expecting to step up socially through the institution and specially by their children once they access higher education. Eventually, it must be considered that some aspects must be explored through further research, however it was possible to understand - in terms of regularity - the strategies and mechanisms adopted by families, and consequently understand the movement of “School elites” (BRANDÃO; CARVALHO, 2011) from Alfenas and their specificities, from understanding the educational paths of the students and the methodological constitution of their habitus.