Textbooks for Rural Schools: Conflict Between Norms and School Practices

Abstract

This chapter aims to analyze elements of the National Textbook Program for rural schools (PNLD Campo), which was created by the Brazilian Government with the specific purpose of distributing textbooks to the student population of schools located in rural areas. Commercial publishers produced the textbooks in accordance with the requirements established by the Federal Ministry of Education. The Ministry also determines their editorial, curricular, didactical, and methodological characteristics by means of Public Notice releases. The central issue discussed in this study is the government project of offering different textbooks to rural and urban schools. The empirical study encompassed two stages. In the first phase, we analyzed official documents, which regulate and organize the PNLD Campo program (Notice and Guideline), verifying the characteristics of the textbooks designated for rural students and comparing them to the legal orientations and to the characteristics of the textbooks designated for urban schools. In the second phase, a survey was conducted with teachers who work at the schools of an Agrarian Reform Settlement, whose pedagogical orientation is enacted along with the educational principles of the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). The results unpack various mismatches between the conceptions of Rural Education and Countryside Education existing in the organization of the schools, textbooks, and official documents. They also suggest how these tensions affect the selection and use the textbooks by the teachers.