Survey of the local reality of students

As for the reality of the students who participated in this research, these are young people aged between 17 and 19 years old who still live with their parents. As for the family nucleus, most households, approximately 64% of them, are composed of 4 people or more.

About 93% of students claimed to have joined IFAC due to the quality of education and infrastructure provided by the institution. Also declaring that they do not have income from employment, internship, or similar activities; despite 21% of all students claiming to receive an allowance from their parents. All students who participated in the survey claimed to be public school graduates.

Still, the collected data reveals that a significant portion (46%) of the students' families receive gross income between 1 and 1.5 monthly minimum wages, which the main source of income in the family budget comes from the parents of these students. Approximately 71% of students receive assistance in school at the institution where they study, which reveals a situation of predominant family socio-economic fragility, justifying the need for the financial support received.

Part of the students lives in neighborhoods far from the central area of the city, where there are usually problems with paving infrastructure, public lighting, crime, and, in some cases, subject to flooding from rivers in the region, that often reach their homes.

Identification of significant situations

After completing the stage corresponding to the preliminary survey of the local reality, the speeches that were given by the students and their parents or guardians were analyzed, which resulted in the selection of eight statements that expressed possible anxieties, tensions, conflicts, and other situations that seemed significant to the researcher.

This set of significant speeches, taken as generative themes, expressed several possible situations, especially regarding issues involving the use of financial resources such as expenses, costs, income, and other socio-economic aspects involving students and their families, as can be seen in Box 1.

The set of speeches presented here expresses the organizational synthesis of the significant speeches of the research participants, which should guide the systematization of the pedagogical dynamics to be implemented through the educators' critical view (^{SILVA, 2004}). Otherwise, it is based on this set of statements that the dialogue between the worldviews of students and educators must be established, the result of which must be the problematization of situations that express contradictions and conflicts.

Problematization of significant speech

In order to validate the significant speeches as generative themes, some problematization activities were carried out, which involved the presentation of comic strips, cartoons, and images to students, all of them with the theme of financial education as a backdrop.

Activity I consisted of questioning the following speech:

Speech 01: “I keep (money) to use in some important situation, like helping to buy food” (student).

This speech was considered significant because it involves one of the most important social issues of our time, the precariousness of work, which makes full family support unfeasible and further aggravates the lack of family planning, especially the economically most vulnerable, culminating in the manifestation of financial difficulties. This prematurely pressures young people to search for alternative sources to make up the family income at the expense of studies, showing the social vulnerability in which they are inserted, unlike the reality experienced by young people whose families enjoy better socio-economic conditions.

As an explanatory limit, it was considered important that the parents/guardians are not able to meet all the necessary expenses to support the home, which puts pressure on the children to feel the obligation to contribute financially to the parents, in matters involving domestic support.

Thus, to problematize the situation contained in the selected speech, an image and a cartoon were used (Figure 1), as follows:

This figure, on the reader's left, intends a situation in which the family, composed of three members, apparently does not have problems with basic sustenance, especially about the purchase of food. The situation represented by the opposite side (reader's right), on the other hand, refers to financial difficulties faced by another family, this time composed of five people, and the children, observing the situation of financial fragility faced by the parents, seek to help in some way, even without having sufficient resources or the necessary means for this.

To encourage discussions about the situations presented in Figure 1, the following statements were presented to the students for further discussions:

Regarding the first statement, the students predominantly expressed that the responsibility for sustaining the house belongs to the parents, and good family and financial planning allows families to approach the situation presented on the left side of Figure 1, in a context of greater financial stability, especially with the consumption of basic goods for sustenance such as food and housing.

On the other hand, when discussing the second statement, the students revealed that the involvement of younger people in containing extra expenses and unnecessary expenses is essential, and they should even seek alternative sources of income such as internships, employment as a young apprentice, or even open their own business, contributing to the family's livelihood. Due to the lack of financial resources, it is observed that young people, pressured by the state of financial deprivation, take upon themselves the duty of collaborating with the family support, as observed in Speech 02.

Speech 02: “I keep it, but then I spend it on food, accessories, clothes... sometimes the parents need it too” (student).

The analysis of the situation presented turns out to reveal a contradiction in the view of the young students since, at the same time that they attribute the full family support to the parents' responsibility, they claim part of this responsibility for themselves, despite still being in a physical, cognitive, emotional, social and moral values development phase (FERREIRA; FARIAS; SILVARES, 2009). At this time, young people should fully dedicate themselves to basic studies, leisure, and professional training, having work as an educational principle and not being linked to work due to the need for sustenance, due to their socio-economic precariousness (^{RAMOS, 2014}).

It is important to highlight that part of the debts incurred by some families come from the unnecessary consumption of young people, such that parents, to meet their children's wishes, give in to what the young people ask for, corroborating speeches 07 and 08, as follows:

Speech 07: “I don't know, because everything they (the children) want, I buy, for this reason, I have a lot of debts” (mother of a student).

Speech 08: “I say I can't (afford it), but I always find a way to buy” (student's mother).

This situation reveals a social fragility, as low-income families do not have full financial conditions to support their children in their basic needs such as food and education, despite continuing to incur debts due to the wishes of the children. Due to the lack of family financial planning, their social conditions are aggravated by the lack of employment, or its precariousness, and by the also precarious educational and professional training, contributing to the fact that, at an early age, young people need to enter the labor market to help support their familiar livelihoods.

Activity II consisted of the problematization of speeches 03 and 04, which answers came from a question made to students about the existence of strategies for achieving a stable source of income and subsequent formation of financial wealth, after completing high school.

Here are the speeches:

Speech 03: “Yes, studying and graduating from some college to work in the future” (student).

Speech 04: “[...] I think about getting a part-time job to support myself while I study” (student).

From these speeches, a problematization was carried out based on strips (Figure 2) that present two situations about job offers based on minimum qualification requirements for the job.

To boost the dialogues consistent with the activity, the following statements were made available for reflection and discussion:

Regarding the first statement, the students considered that university education does not guarantee the achievement of employment, unless they complete a college in "elite areas", such as a medical course, which is generally far from the reality of low-income students. Thus, this position binds them to an insurmountable transposition of reality, due to their socio-economic conditions, feeling increasingly distant from a reality in which they can have a good university and professional education, in addition to decent financial and social conditions.

When dealing with the second statement, they emphasized that a paid occupation during the university course is something necessary, but very difficult to achieve, mainly due to the lack of experience, the lack of opportunity to obtain such experience through internships, the swelling of the work market and the inability of companies to create new vacancies. This positioning can be correlated with the following speeches:

"[...] companies usually do not make the job market rotate to give opportunities to others, they hire a professional, and if he is good, the company does not even open other positions to help those who want to enter the labor market" (student).

“No, it's not that easy[...], sometimes the requirements are two years of experience and the person who has just graduated is left out” (student).

“The job market for university students would be a gateway to the job market that would bring financial remuneration, but currently this market is very restricted and not very inclusive” (student).

In this context, there is a need to work during college education to supplement the income needed to cover the expenses related to the university, thus demonstrating a situation of socio-economic weakness in which students and their families live, revealing the anxieties and tensions regarding permanence in studies and insertion in the labor market.

Activity III sought to problematize situations related to financial difficulties faced concerning domestic and family support. As significant lines, speeches 05 and 06 were selected, as they best represent a limit-situation, in the context analyzed:

Speech 05: “I believe that, for a father or mother of a family, one of the biggest difficulties that can be faced is the issue of food. The bills and payment slips can always wait a little longer, but the children's food becomes more important than anything else” (student's mother).

Speech 06: “My biggest difficulties are the high cost of products, especially in food” (student's mother)

According to what was exposed in the first speech, the priority is to buy food for the children, leaving aside the other expenses, bills, and costs that are also necessary to support the family over the months. The second speech ratifies the first and brings an important element as to the justification for going through such difficulties, which is the high cost of food.

For these reasons, the statements were considered significant, as they disregard important elements such as low education - which leads to precariousness and uberization⁹ of work - and the generalized increase in prices caused by inflation.

Thus, to carry out the problematization of speeches 05 and 06, two cartoons were presented to students, which represent situations of domestic financial difficulties, as shown in Figure 3.

After the presentation of Figure 3, two statements were made available for discussion by the students, as shown below:

After analyzing the elements contained in the speeches of the students, in general, it was observed that the issue of food, despite being a priority, is not the only one that afflicts family members in terms of livelihood. Other difficulties were also attributed as essential elements, such as rents, energy, water, and other costs of basic goods that, currently, are constantly affected by inflation, due to the current national economic instability¹⁰.

In addition, other important elements were identified as aggravating the financial precariousness of families, such as issues of low income, precarious employment, indebtedness due to lack of financial organization, and unregulated consumption. Such elements were detected from the answers given by the students, when asked about what would be the biggest difficulties faced by the parents, in the support of their families. As a result, the following responses were obtained:

“The financial organization, as there is never anything left”.

“The biggest difficulty might be the children... maybe the child asks for something and the father goes and ends up giving in and, he goes and buys and then realizes that he shouldn't have done that. There is also 'the' person not knowing how to manage their money correctly and this makes it very difficult”.

“It's the financial organization and maintaining an income, as not everyone has a regular income. There are self-employed jobs that don't have a regular monthly income compromising the family's income, others have but don't organize themselves”.

It is also observed that the second speech presented here refers once again to the significant speeches 07 and 08, a situation in which parents, despite having a limited budget, end up increasing their often unnecessary debts to meet the children's desire for consumption.

Definition of the generating themes and the counter themes

After completing the problematization activities with the students, the significant speeches obtained were analyzed using the schematic table¹¹ (Box 2) developed by Stuani (2008 apud ^{TORRES, 2010}) based on elements of the dynamics of ^{Silva (2004}), in which the explanatory limits of the students to the questions raised were placed to, then, confirm such speeches as generative themes.

Based on the elements present in the students' “worldview” (explanatory limits), the educator-researcher's worldview (counter-themes) was defined regarding the generative themes that, according to ^{Silva (2004}), behave as a “compass” that guides the search for more comprehensive solutions for understanding and transforming the local reality, allowing the appropriation and reconstruction of knowledge necessary to overcome the problem-situations experienced.

The thematic reduction process

After validating the speeches as generative themes and defining their respective counter-themes, it was necessary to build a thematic network that, constituted from the elements present in the worldview of the research participants, enabled the organization of content for the transversal teaching of financial education.

Organizing the thematic network

The systematization of the thematic network allowed the elements found in the students' worldview to be constituted in a connected way so that the researcher started his analysis starting from the local dimension and then proceeding to the analysis of the micro and macro levels of social organization.

Thus, the construction of the network started from the base-top structuring logic (^{SILVA, 2004}), in which the chain of ideas is represented by Arabic numerals arranged along the network, suggesting a sequence of reading and, consequently, of apprehension of the content therein, as presented below:

It is about “[...] a dynamic and participative systematization of sociocultural and political representation [...]” which, conceived in the form of a network, starts from a problematizing political-pedagogical process and not just as a cognitive technique for the selection of content (^{SILVA, 2004}, p. 334).

The organization of content via generating themes

After completing the investigation, problematization and validation procedures of the speeches as generative themes, which involved the process of encoding, problematizing and decoding the students' concrete existential situation, the organization of the contents for financial education was carried out via generative themes, a step that included the process of thematic reduction.

In the case of this particular work, the proposal of thematic reduction took financial education as its core element, in which learning contents were prepared by the group of teachers who teach in the 3rd year of the technical course in information technology integrated into the high school of the Sena Madureira Campus/ IFAC, especially with the participation of those who work in the areas of Physical Education, Geography, History, Information Technology, Mathematics, Portuguese, Psychology, and Sociology.

Given the breadth of aspects that involved the generative themes found and the specificity of the subject dealt with, which is financial education, it became convenient to define only one generative question: "What socio-economic, political, geographic, social and historical factors contribute to social disparities and what are the possible ways to mitigate the financial vulnerability conditions of families?"

That said, it is advisable to make available the school schedule with the selection of learning contents and respective pedagogical intentions for the approach of financial education from generative themes, as shown in Box 3.

The learning contents arranged in the work plan proposed by Box 3 represent the effort of the teaching group to seek the systematization of contents relevant to financial education, starting from different areas of knowledge, observing the elements brought by the generating themes and respective thematic network defined in research.

Thus, such curricular organization was carried out from an integrative perspective, in which the inclusion of financial education was proposed to reach, transversely, the different school subjects. Thus, financial education came to be presented as a core element of the approach, around which the various disciplinary areas were organized and which, according to ^{Gallo (2001}), ends up attributing new meanings to the school subjects themselves.

It is important to emphasize that the proposed transversality model does not intend to create a new disciplinary component, but rather to seek to reduce the rigidity of knowledge that exists between the different disciplines of the technical course in information technology integrated into high school education at Campus Sena Madureira. In this sense, transversality in financial education sought to present itself as a “[...] meaning axis of the educational process [...]”, capable of moving between the disciplinary knowledge that configures the traditional curriculum (^{GALLO, 2001}, p. 22).

It is a process of resizing curricular subjects that must be subordinated to the most urgent educational needs of students and consider, as a starting point for learning, their socio-cultural and socio-economic context (^{SOUZA, 1998}).

This process can be associated with the concept of integration and humanization, in which the subjects' relationship with the environment does not simply depend on "being in it", as an object or something static, but also on being "with it", in an interaction movement and active participation in everyday transformations. It is a symbiotic relationship between man and concrete reality in which, the more one intervenes in it, the more dynamic, humanized, and molded to their own wills this reality becomes, which leads to the path of liberation referred to by Paulo ^{Freire ( 1967}).

Corroborating Freire's liberating pedagogy, ^{Young (2007}) and ^{Sacristán (2013}) additionally observe that, for the student, the path to intellectual liberation must be followed through curricular integration among the various school disciplines. Above all, it must occur through dialogic teaching, based on the analysis of the social context and reinforced by scientific knowledge that helps to understand the social reality experienced by students.

Similarly, the perspective of curricular integration based on polytechnic, omnilateral and unitary training bases serves as a guiding thread to broaden the understanding of the reality in which students are inserted, enabling them to intervene in it critically (^{RAMOS, 2008}).

Thus, the school must undertake a critical pedagogy, capable of taking into account the ethical aspects of knowledge and the social relations to which students are inserted while addressing the historical and spatial context of the community's daily life (^{SANTOMÉ, 1998}).

Therefore, it is in this sense of critical, transversal, polytechnic, omnilateral, and unitary education that the investigation and thematic reduction present in this study was proposed.