Processos de formação e aprendizagem no meio rural: o continuum família-escola

This article seeks to give visibility to the training process of rural lay teachers and to understand how this group of professionals continues to exist. It distinguishes the components of this process in the countryside, experienced by the social subjects/social actors who develop simultaneously the activities of students and of rural workers, making it necessary to reveal the relations existing between the macro social context and education in the countryside. In this sense, it emphasises the importance of the differentiated use which the rural family makes of the school space and services, establishing a strict relationship between the two institutions not only with reference to the appropriation of school knowledge but also with reference to the services and practices which the school can offer to the family, above all to the rural mother worker. In the same way as the school makes use of the different spaces available in the community like the teachers house, the church or the community hall in order to carry out its specific functions, the rural family establishes with the institution school the presence of the State in the community a specific use which serves their immediate needs. In the article, the testimonies of the teachers are revisited and, on the basis of their memories of schooling and professional practice, certain significant questions are analysed in order to broaden the discussion on rural education