1 Introduction

The Pedagogy course was instituted in Brazil in 1939, through Decree-Law No. 1,190, of April 4. Since its constitution, the training has been submerged in constant debates and questions, especially with regard to the professional required by the course and its fields of work. After 83 years of its implementation, these points are still the subject of discussions in the educational environment.

Over the years, some legal milestones have shaped the configuration of the Pedagogy course. Three of them were specially implemented to modify the profile of the professional to be formed by the course. The first milestone, instituted in 1939, determined that the course would train technicians in education. The second milestone, dated 1969, determined the training of specialists. Finally, the third was defined by Resolution CNE/CP No. 1/2006, which postulated the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Pedagogy Course (DCNCP) and sought the training of teachers, managers and researchers.

Therefore, the 2006 DCNCP defined teaching, management and research as the structuring basis of the course. In a way, this provided an expansion in the workspaces available to professionals trained in the Pedagogy course:

Art. 4 The Pedagogy Degree course is designed to train teachers to exercise teaching functions in Early Childhood Education and in the early years of Elementary Education, in High School courses, in the Normal modality, in Professional Education in the area of services and support school and in other areas where pedagogical knowledge is foreseen. (BRASIL, 2006, p. 2).

Since then, the course has started to train, mainly, teachers (for teaching in Early Childhood Education, in the early years of Elementary School, in High School courses in the Normal modality and in Teacher Training), managers (for management positions, coordination of pedagogical work or other designations) and researchers (producers of scientific knowledge for the area of Education).

This expansion of the workspaces granted to graduates in the course to which we refer also provided a significant increase in the number of enrollments in Pedagogy courses. The data released by the Higher Education Census (BRAZIL, 2021) indicate that, in 2021, the course registered 789,254 enrollments, thus occupying the first place in the ranking of Brazilian courses with the highest number of enrollments.

In view of this, we show that the multipurpose training provided by the 2006 DCNCP contributed to the increase in demand for the course, however, in the period following the guidelines, specifically from 2010 to 2019, there was also a significant increase in the number of Pedagogy courses offered in Brazil, especially in the Distance Learning (Distance Learning) modality.

According to data released by the Brazilian Yearbook of Basic Education (^{CRUZ; MONTEIRO, 2021}), with the increase in distance courses, the number of enrollments in Pedagogy courses has practically doubled in the last ten years, so much so that it reached a total of 66.4 % of total enrollments in higher education degree courses. Regarding the Pedagogy courses of the private network, for example, those of the face-to-face modality registered 171,289 insertions (25%) in 2021, while those of the EaD modality registered 515,057 (75%).

We note, therefore, that both the expansion of the fields of work conferred by the DCNCP of 2006 and the growth in the number of courses offered in the national territory contributed to the increase in demand for training in Pedagogy. Given this finding, we raised the need to investigate how the professional insertion of these subjects has occurred, considering the challenges imposed by the world of work. This is because, given the current form of management of marketing production processes, many do not even enter the educational sphere. In addition, teaching workers face precarious working conditions, both with regard to remuneration and forms of hiring and with regard to physical and material aspects of work.

2 Methodology

Through the conception of man, history, education and reality, we adopt critical-dialectical research as an epistemological foundation. In this perspective, “[...] man is conceived as a social and historical being determined by economic, political and cultural contexts and at the same time as a transforming being of these contexts” (^{SÁNCHEZ GAMBOA, 2014}, p. 99). For this reason, the text is structured in a dialectical movement, in which there is a constant relationship between education and society, work and education. This background is fundamental for us to understand how the universal context of work interferes with the particularity of teaching work and, more specifically, the uniqueness of teaching work of graduates of the Pedagogy course.

Considering the objective of the research, which is to unveil how the graduates of the Pedagogy course have been entering the labor market, we carried out exploratory research. For this, we used as a methodological procedure the bibliographic research and documentary analysis compared to the data analysis, which were produced from the application of questionnaires.

For the bibliographic research, we rely on the discussion of critical-dialectical authors, such as ^{Antunes (2009}), ^{Enguita (1991}), ^{Gatti et al. (2019}), ^{Hypólito (2020}) and ^{Oliveira (2004}, 2013), who discuss the organization of the world of work and its implications on the organization of teaching work. For documentary research, we support the resolutions instituted for the course and the legislation attributed to the teaching career. We also carried out a production of data through the application of semi-structured virtual questionnaires, due to the moment of Covid-19 pandemic experienced in the development of the research. Participants were 275 graduates of the Pedagogy course at the State University of West Paraná (Unioeste), campus of Francisco Beltrão, Paraná (PR), graduated between 2011 and 2019.

Given the theoretical basis mentioned above and the data that were produced, we present some issues related to the world of work, taking as reference some principles that imply the conditions of teaching work. For this, we discuss the professional required and the configuration of the Unioeste Pedagogy course. Finally, from the empirical data, we analyzed the workspaces in which these professionals are inserted, also bringing some data about the working conditions of these subjects.

3 Results and discussion

To be humanized, the human being, political and social needs to establish relations with other individuals. And, among all relations, those established by labor are fundamental to produce the conditions necessary for its existence. Therefore, we will make some considerations about the world of work, in an attempt to demonstrate how the dynamics of social relations of work management are configured and how this dynamic has implications both for the organization and for the working conditions of teachers.

As human needs change over the years, the means used to organize work processes also change. Therefore, the world of work is marked by constant changes, arising from the new means used by the human being to organize the production of his own existence.

Although labor reconfigurations have a singularly economic nature, these changes are reflected in the practices of other social spheres, directly impacting all sectors of life. By the way, the social culture itself has been guided by the demands of work, because, as the forms of work management are reconfigured, the determinations for human and professional training also change. To the extent that the market establishes an ideal worker profile, it also postulates an ideal training model to train the required worker profile, therefore the training processes are closely related to the reconfigurations of the world of work. Therefore, the teaching work is not determined by itself, since the relations between structure and superstructure interfere in the organization of all forms of work.

In general, the world of labor is configured in three major strands, disseminated after the consolidation of the capitalist mode of production. These strands are called: Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism, the latter also known as flexible accumulation regime. Each of these strategies elaborated forms of management that impacted the various spheres of society (^{ANTUNES, 2009}).

It should be noted that, since the 1990s, the Toyotist way of organizing the productive processes of the labor market has intensified. This form of management is based on flexibility, fragmentation, intensification, polyvalence, precariousness and outsourcing of work. These principles enter the educational sector through public policies, conditioning not only educational policies but also the management of teaching work.

Because of this organization, the teaching career has faced a process of deprofessionalization, which results in increasingly precarious working conditions and remuneration (^{ENGUITA, 1991}). This dynamic enters the educational sector through a set of reforms based on labor control, flexibility of processes and contracts, decentralization, cost reduction, etc.

Regarding the direct implications that these reforms caused in the teaching work, we can mention:

[…] the increase in temporary contracts in public education networks, reaching, in some states, the number corresponding to the number of effective workers, the wage squeeze, the disregard for a national wage floor, the inadequacy or even absence, in some cases, of job and salary plans, the loss of labor and social security guarantees arising from the reform processes of the State Apparatus have made the situation of instability and precariousness of employment in the public teaching increasingly acute. (^{OLIVEIRA, 2004}, p. 1140).

These strategies are reflections of the educational reforms implemented in Brazil around the 1990s and brought setbacks to the profession, while flexibility restructured the organization of educational work, corroborating the precariousness of labor relations.

^{Oliveira (2004}) emphasizes that currently one of the main struggles undertaken by education professionals occurs in favor of wage appreciation, in view of the precariousness of teachers' income. According to data released by the Brazilian Yearbook of Basic Education (^{CRUZ; MONTEIRO, 2021}), the average income of a Basic Education teacher is 30% lower than that of any other professional with Higher Education.

However, according to goal 17 of the National Education Plan (PNE), established by Law No. 13,005, of June 25, 2014, until 2020 the income of teaching professionals should be equivalent to that of other professionals with Higher Education (BRAZIL, 2014), which did not happen. Another unconsolidated regulation in practice is goal 18 of the 2014 PNE, which ensures entry into the teaching career exclusively by public tender. This also defines that, until the beginning of 2016, at least 90% of the professionals of Basic Education and Higher Education of the public network should be employed by public tender, but this projection is not yet a reality after eight years of the implementation of the law.

These circumstances demonstrate how precarious the teaching profession is in Brazil, including because of the devaluation of the career. Research by ^{Gatti et al. (2019}) reveal that younger students are not attracted to Pedagogy courses. Even with the increasing number of enrollments, the precariousness of the profession has disinterested young Brazilians to opt for a degree in Pedagogy.

According to a survey released by the Union of Maintaining Entities of Higher Education Establishments in the State of São Paulo (Semesp), the number of young people enrolled in Pedagogy courses has decreased in recent years. Thus, even if the number of enrollments has been growing, Semesp made a projection that Brazil is at risk of suffering a shortage of teachers in all stages of Basic Education. The research highlighted three reasons for this occurrence:

Young people's lack of interest in pursuing a career as a teacher, announced by the low demand for degree courses and evidenced by the process of precariousness of this profession, such as low pay and the lack of recognition of its importance in society. Aging of the faculty in recent years, with emphasis on the growing number of professionals about to leave the position. Leaving the profession due to precarious working conditions, such as poor infrastructure in some schools, lack of equipment and support material, violence in the classroom and health problems, all aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. (SEMESP, 2022, p. 4, emphasis in the original).

According to the data that was released, the number of teachers under 24 at the beginning of their careers fell by half from 2009 to 2021. On the other hand, in the same period there was a 109% growth in the number of teachers aged 50 years or more, which demonstrates the aging of the teaching staff. Given this context, it is estimated that the gap is approximately 235 thousand teachers by 2040 (SEMESP, 2022). In addition, most of the few young people who have been interested in the Pedagogy course belong to the popular strata of society. ^{Gatti et al. (2019}, p. 167) present in their analyzes that the number of Pedagogy graduates from the layers with the largest economic resources in society has decreased every year:

[...] if, in 2005, half of the undergraduates came from the middle strata of the population, in 2014 they represent only 1/3 of this layer [...] in 2005, still close to 10% of the students came from families with greater economic resources, while in 2014 this percentage does not reach 3%.

Therefore, the percentage of young students of Pedagogy from families with better economic conditions fell 7% in an interval of nine years, that is, most of those interested in the Pedagogy course come from the lower strata of society. The professional devaluation of the teaching career explains the fact that the Pedagogy course is not so sought after by young Brazilians and classes with greater purchasing power.

Given all these aspects, there is no way to discuss the professional insertion of graduates of the Pedagogy course without talking about the challenges imposed on the profession. In this text, we present some data extracted from the questionnaire answered by 275 subjects who completed the Pedagogy course at Unioeste, Francisco Beltrão/PR campus, between the years 2011 to 2019.

The Unioeste Pedagogy course, campus of Francisco Beltrão/PR, changed its Political-Pedagogical Project (PPP) in 2008, through Resolution No. 374/2007 of the Council for Teaching, Research and Extension (CEPE). This regulation instituted the Pedagogy course at the Center for Human Sciences on the campus of Francisco Beltrão/PR as a degree course.

As the minimum workload for the initial training in Pedagogy courses was fixed in a period of four years, the first class of the institution formed by the PPP of 2008 completed the studies in 2011, a year that marks the beginning of the time frame used in the research. This PPP was implemented to adapt the course configuration to the 2006 DCNCP. Thus, the institution restructured the course to basically train teachers for teaching in Early Childhood Education and in the early years of Elementary School and pedagogues, professionals responsible for the articulation of pedagogical work.

In this format, between 2011 and 2019 Unioeste trained 537 subjects in the Pedagogy course, of which, through a virtual questionnaire prepared in Google Forms, we were able to consult 275. Given the data obtained, we identified that the course formed a large number of women. There are 255 women (92.7%) for 20 men (7.3%).

The data from the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP) issued in the Higher Education Census of 2021 also prove the predominance of women in the course. In 2020, the percentage of women enrolled in undergraduate degree courses was 72.8%, while that of men was 27.2% (BRAZIL, 2021). These indices demonstrate that even today the feminization process characterizes undergraduate courses.

By the way, ^{Hypólito (2020}) understands that the predominance of women in the teaching career is one of the factors responsible for the process of deprofessionalization that the profession has faced. According to the author, this process is crucial to analyze the proletarianization of teaching work, considering that, despite all the achievements achieved by women over the years, they are still more subject to precariousness than men. This condition is historical and is one of the reasons why even today the teaching work faces precarious conditions, such as low remuneration and high rates of temporary hiring.

On the other hand, even though national surveys indicate a lack of interest on the part of young Brazilians in the Pedagogy course, the age of graduates of the Unioeste course from Francisco Beltrão/PR ranged from 22 to 55 years old, and most of the participants are between 26 and 30 years old. This data indicates that young people in the region have sought the course of the institution.

Because we do not have empirical data that show the insertion of these subjects in the labor market, we questioned the 275 subjects who participated in the research about the positions and/or functions they occupy. In addition, we checked the ways in which these subjects were hired.

Regarding the professional insertion in the labor market, we found that, despite the difficulties imposed by the world of work, which were reported by the participants themselves, there are a large number of graduates working in educational sectors.

Source: Prepared by the authors (2022).

Graph 1 Graduates of the Unioeste Pedagogy course inserted in the educational sector - 2011-2019 

The data expressed in Graph 1 reveal that 77.5%, that is, 213 graduates, are working in at least one of the educational spaces for which the Unioeste Pedagogy course by Francisco Beltrão/PR forms, while 22.5% are not inserted in the teaching career.

When questioning them about the positions and/or functions they occupy, we find that most of those who work as education professionals are teachers in Early Childhood Education. Graph 2 shows the distribution of professionals within the three fields of work for which the Pedagogy course of the researched institution has the intent to train.

Source: Prepared by the authors (2022).

Graph 2 Spaces for professional insertion of Pedagogy graduates from Unioeste - 2011-2019 

According to the data produced, 86 graduates work exclusively as teachers in Early Childhood Education (40.3%). However, another 14 are teachers in Early Childhood Education and in the early years of Elementary School. If we add these percentages, we conclude that the first stage of Basic Education concentrates more than 46% of the subjects. The second field with the largest number of workers comprises the initial years of elementary school. This field concentrates 53 exclusive workers, that is, 24.8%, in addition to the 14 already mentioned and the six that reconcile this function to management or pedagogical coordination. Third is the field of management or pedagogical coordination, with 12 workers exclusively occupying one of these positions (5.6%).

In Graph 2, we reveal the workspace of 171 graduates who participated in the research. The other 42 work in at least one of the spaces made possible by the 2006 DCNCP, either as teachers in the final years of Elementary School, High School, Teacher Training, among other spaces. However, none of these concentrates a number greater than three graduates.

Early Childhood Education is the field that concentrates the largest number of professionals. This growth in the number of workers in Early Childhood Education was already expected, since this was incorporated as the first stage of Basic Education by the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB) nº 9.394/1996 and, with its mandatory nature, the Vacancies in this field needed to be filled urgently. Thus, several competitions and selective tests were carried out to fill the vacancies of this space; while the number of teachers at this level of education grew 10.1% from 2016 to 2021, at the other levels the numbers decreased (SEMESP, 2022).

As previously reported, the organization of the labor market develops based on the dynamics of the flexible accumulation regime, which has its maximum in fragmentation, flexibility, intensification, precariousness and outsourcing of work. Through public policies, this dynamic enters the educational sector and interferes in the organization of teaching work.

These circumstances indicate the incidence for the flexibilization of contracts and consequently for outsourcing. We can verify this statement with Graph 3, prepared based on the answers obtained in the questionnaire sent to the graduates of the Unioeste Pedagogy course. In it, the 213 subjects who work in the educational sector categorize the type of employment contract to which they are linked.

Source: Prepared by the authors (2022).

Graph 3 Forms of hiring graduates of the Unioeste Pedagogy course, 2011-2019 

The data in Graph 3 show that, of the 213 education workers trained in Unioeste, 135 are hired exclusively by public tender, just over 63.3%. Another 20 have a partial contract via public tender, possibly 20 hours per week, while the complementation of the workload occurs by temporary contract. Finally, 27.1% are hired only for temporary contracts, that is, they do not have the guarantee of employment. Nevertheless, the average income of Basic Education professionals is below the average income of any other professional with complete Higher Education. According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2020 the provision of education professionals corresponded to R$4,131.00, while that of professionals in the exact area maintained an average of R$6,613.00, in the humanities area R$5,990.00 and in the health area R$6,622.00 (^{CRUZ; MONTEIRO, 2021}).

In this regard, we investigated the base salary of teachers who graduated from Unioeste distributed in 30 municipalities in the three states of southern Brazil. With the results obtained, we found that nine municipalities have a remuneration lower than the national wage floor established by Law No. 11.738/2008. Another ten municipalities provide remuneration in the value of the floor and two remunerate teachers with a value very close to the floor, less than 5% more. Therefore, salaries similar to other careers of professionals with higher education are observed in only nine municipalities.

These are just two situations that indicate the precariousness of teaching work. In fact, both were indicated as the main causes for which 62 graduates of the Unioeste Pedagogy course are not working in the educational sector. The lack of vacancies or calls in public tenders was mentioned as the main cause by 29 graduates, and another ten associated it with other reasons. Regarding the lack of salary conditions, eight graduates said they were not inserted in the sector for this reason; another 12 associated this reason with some other, such as infrastructure and recommended material working conditions.

With this, we reveal that in fact the public policies implemented in Brazil have not ensured guarantees to the teaching profession. These unassured rights directly imply the working conditions of education professionals, from their entry into the labor market to their permanence in the profession.

For this reason, ^{Enguita (1991}) understands that the profession is in a contradictory position between proletarianization and professionalization. According to the author, professionals are those who occupy a position that guarantees them good salary conditions, power and social recognition, in addition to some autonomy in the profession they perform. On the other hand, proletarians are those who work in undervalued professions, with low incomes, who do not have professional autonomy, because they have to deal with the fragmentation of work processes.

Therefore, in the face of a process of deprofessionalization of the teaching career, legitimized by the hiring of cheap labor, through flexible and temporary contracts, we have not yet reached career professionalization. This reverse process that focuses on the profession “[...] requires that effective career reinforcement measures in the sense of both forms of entry and permanence must presuppose better working conditions and remuneration” (^{OLIVEIRA, 2013}, p. 69).

4 Final considerations

Based on the analysis of the data produced, we conclude that the graduates of the Unioeste Pedagogy course, campus of Francisco Beltrão/PR, are young people who are between 26 and 30 years old, which is an exception to the data available at national level. However, the phenomenon of feminization that characterizes the degree is also present in the institution, considering that 92.7% of the graduates are women.

Regarding the professional insertion of these subjects in the labor market, we reveal that, despite the determinations of the world of work, 77.5% work in the area of Education in at least one of the fields for which the course licenses. In addition, we found that Early Childhood Education concentrates the largest number of professionals, as there are more than 46% workers inserted in this space.

Teaching workers, however, still face precarious working conditions and remuneration, as evidenced in the discussions previously reported. Not all of them are guaranteed to work, as many have temporary employment contracts. In addition, the remuneration of teachers is below what is regulated by law for the profession.

Finally, we conclude that the contradictions of the world of work are challenging, but still, there are many subjects who choose teaching as a profession. As we saw in the results obtained, a large number of alumni of Unioeste, campus of Francisco Beltrão/PR, entered the teaching career. This demonstrates that, even in the face of a scenario of dismantling of education, the work areas that the Pedagogy course provides are still constituted, unlike other degrees, as greater possibilities of entry into the labor market for students from the popular classes, the who need to work to ensure their survival and supply their material needs. In view of this, we need to require public policies that implement actions for access and permanence of the new generations to the teaching career, with appreciation and social recognition in favor of improving the quality of education.