Escuelas, familias y tramas sociourbanas: Entrecruzamientos en contextos de diversidad y desigualdad social

Abstract

This article presents certain meaningful features of the historicethnographic investigations carried out by its authors over the past fifteen years in schools and neighborhoods of the City of Buenos Aires and its suburbs. The article aims mainly to question the educational and schooling processes of popular majorities in Argentina, considering three interconnected lines of analysis. First, we refer to way the relation between families and schools was characterized at the beginning of the present century - a mode originated in the late twentieth century - and the social policies of each moment were experienced in the everyday life of schools and neighborhoods, as well as how they were appropriated and signified by teachers, families and scholars. We then present the current hegemonic representations of the relationship between families and schools. These representations have constituted such relationship as a social problem, characterized by specific requirements and demands for schools and for families. We also include multiple practices and meanings that unfold in everyday life, which put a strain on these demands, and relate to larger political processes. Finally, we focus on these practices and meanings considering local organizational networks, showing the way educational and school processes are carried out by multiple socio-political actors linked to different forms of collective action, in which schooling issues are worked out including and at the same time going beyond school.