Mulheres mães na EJA: das dificuldades às superações, quando não existe a opção desistir...

Abstract

In this Course Completion Work, the topic under discussion is about women, mothers and students who studied in the Youth and Adult Education modality - EJA, in a State School in the city of João Pessoa -PB. Based on an exploratory field research, with a qualitative approach, the main objective is to analyze the path of these women who are attending or have completed high school, with a view to identifying challenges, overcoming and expectations in their educational and maternal trajectory, through of the analysis of autobiographical narratives. Why did women mothers enroll in the EJA modality? How does motherhood relate to student life? What are the biggest difficulties to be able to study? How have you managed to overcome them? What do you aim for when you finish high school? These are the questions answered throughout the research. To support the theoretical discussion, the main authors are: Freire (1979), Ribeiro (2007), Biroli (2018), Scherer, Santos (2021), among others. Voices (like mine) of female student mothers are presented here who tell our life stories, with interruptions in our school trajectories, as well as overcoming the challenges imposed by gender, social, ethnic inequalities and, mainly, by being mothers in a country that carries strong traces of patriarchy, racism and colonialism. The results obtained confirm that women are compelled to take on the exclusivity of caring for sons and daughters, housework and, sometimes, paid or unpaid work; such conditions lead to an overload of activities and, consequently, dropping out of school may be the only option for some. Others go back to school, sometimes years later, dream and go to university. We conclude, therefore, that the discussion can contribute to the identification with other voices, in the discursive intertwining of other stories of (re)cognition of so many women who are mothers and also students.