Reestruturação produtiva, formação e identidade: o projeto escola de fábrica e a construção identitária de jovens trabalhadores

Abstract

The transformations occurred in the world of labor, mainly in face of the industrial-technological revolution, have impressed deep changes in the organization of the productive process in the context of globalization and, in consequence, great changes in the preparation for the labor market, demanding the qualification of workers and the capacitation of workforce. This results in the flexibility and instability of formal jobs. The threat of unemployment in a deregulated and unstable market bestows on companies the power of negotiation (and/or imposition) as to labor forms and conditions. It can be observed a trend for the growth of challenges testing the ability of professionals of selling their knowledge, since this new market design demands them quality, flexibility and greater productivity in order to keep employability. This research has studied the concepts of flexibility, employability, identity and professional education, that permeate the educational public policies through programs aimed at social inclusion. For such, it has investigated the Factory School Project (Projeto Escola de Fábrica) in its conceptions and curricular practices, by means of a study case carried out at CEFET-RS, in two courses of professional qualification at basic level, both offered by the mentioned project. The study sought to understand especially: a) how the Factory School Project contributes for the construction of identities of young workers under training; and b) how it relates to PROEJA, a program that combines secondary and professional education. It was developed through a qualitative research in which teachers, students and administrators participating in the Factory School Project were interviewed, and official documents were used as source of information and support. The curricular structure of the Factory School Project has been analyzed, as well as the way the curriculum was incorporated to the discourses of the subjects. The administrators and teachers have confirmed the demand for creative, agile, prepared/capacitated, flexible professionals, as required by the market, reaffirming a latent discourse in the school quotidian which proclaims flexibility in professional education towards employability. Among students, it could be observed a transparent discourse that functions as an empowering element for employability, in a way that allows inferring that the identity these young workers are building reassures the idea of consumption of diplomas/certification, with views to their own insertion in the labor market.