Abstract

VASCONCELOS, Maria Beatriz de Freitas  and  CALDEIRA, Maria Carolina da Silva. Family literacy and the government of women-mothers: the curriculum of Conta pra Mim and the conformation of female-bodies in the domestic space. Sér.-Estud. [online]. 2022, vol.27, n.61, pp.227-249.  Epub Feb 16, 2023. ISSN 2318-1982.  https://doi.org/10.20435/serieestudos.v27i61.1727.

This article presents an excerpt from a Master’s research in which a document made available by the National Literacy Policy in Brazil (PNA), the Family Literacy Guide, was analyzed. This cultural artifact is a central part of the Federal Government’s Conta pra Mim program, which was launched in 2019 with the aim of encouraging a way of practicing reading, writing and encouraging the development of orality, with children and their families, at home. Although it has objectives that are linked to the school curriculum, the Guide is aimed at families, constituting itself, therefore, as a non-school curriculum, which calls on families to assume certain postures that are commonly expected from the school. The objective of this work is to show, based on post-critical curriculum studies, how the Family Literacy Guide acts as a cultural curriculum and uses biopower techniques to operate by shaping female bodies in the domestic space in different ways. It is argued that this curriculum, implemented to be effective in the domestic sphere, which uses scientific evidence regarding the “maternal habit” to legitimize itself, intends to summon women-mothers to accept this responsibility, since they are still the majority among the people who occupy the domestic space.

Keywords : cultural curriculum; power relations; women-mothers.

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