Introduction

The discussions that emerge from the field of social education, as a space for intervention, are broad. Thus, it is necessary to search for investigations that reference this area through a thematic and time frame. It is by understanding this need that this research aims to enable dialogue between researchers who developed their studies related to education, with emphasis on the bias of Social Pedagogy and Human Rights.

In view of this, this article, characterized as State-of-the-Art, aims to present the research selected on the platforms of the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Google Scholar, and CAPES Journals. For Luna (2009), the aim of the state-of-the-art is to describe the current state of a research area. Indeed, this text presents research linked to the training of social educators and their performance in care institutions.

For Ferreira (2002), state-of-the-art research has the challenge of mapping and discussing certain academic production. Luna (2009) complements that researches like these constitute a wide source of update for researches and researchers.

When seeking research that is related to the object of this study, it was necessary to review the last 10 years (2009-2019) in the aforementioned platforms, since the first Bill No. 5346, which provides for the creation of the profession of educator and social educator, was drawn up in 2009 and appended to Bill 2676/2019, both of which deal with the creation of the profession of educator and social educator, in addition to other measures. Therefore, the selection criterion for the time frame comprises the processing period of projects dealing with the same purpose, that is, regulating the social educator’s profession, which are being processed for ten years.

For the screening and selection of articles, the abstract, introduction, method/methodology, and last considerations were read. To organize the material in this article, it was decided not to present each work individually, but to group them into five (5) guiding axes of discussion and analysis, organized into topics in this article. Of the five axes, three were organized as categories of analysis, the selected articles grouped as follows: 1) “Social Pedagogy as Science”; 2) “The professionalization of Social Education: who is the social educator?” and 3) “Legislations and the Social Education Professional”.

The first axis of discussion presents the methodological guidelines as well as the inclusion and selection criteria of the articles used to prepare the analyses. In this topic, the flowchart of the selected researches and the table with the tabulation of the articles found are systematized.

The second axis, called "Social Pedagogy as Science", shows a dialogue between the authors who directed their studies to the area of Social Pedagogy, with a central theoretical reference in Paulo ^{Freire (2018}) and Graciani (2014) as well as researchers such as ^{Santos and Paula (2014}), ^{Silva (2016}), Paulo, Nachtigall, and Goes (2019) who consider the area of Social Pedagogy as a science that acts and supports the actions of educators and social educators.

In the third axis of discussions, researches referring to the professionalization of social educators were grouped. The studies by ^{Avoglia, Silva, and Matos (2012}), ^{Azevedo (2019}), ^{Barros and Naiff (2015}), ^{Cavalcante and Correa (2012}), and ^{Pereira (2019}) show that there are bills in progress since 2009, but that regulating the professionalization of social education is still something to be achieved.

These discussions support the fourth axis entitled “Legislations and the Social Education Professional”. As this is a detailed analysis of the bills that are being processed, the discussions emphasize the issue in relation to the training of professionals who work with children and adolescents in situations of violation of rights. Research in the area shows that Bill n. 5346/2009 by Deputy Chico Lopes and, more recently, Bill n. 328/2015, proposed by Senator Telmário Mota, seek to regulate the activity of the educator and social educator. ^{Müller and Bauli (2017}) point out that there are many disparities found in the processing of normative proposals, which led to necessary discussions between researchers, professionals, and those interested in regulating the professionalization of social educators.

The fifth and last discussion topic of this article presents the considerations of the analyses presented in relation to studies on the training of professionals working in social pedagogy, with emphasis on social educators and their performance in care institutions.

Methodological courses of action: article selection criteria

A mapping was carried out in the SciELO database, CAPES Journals, and Google Scholar, with the descriptors “Social Pedagogy” or “Care Institutions” or “Human Rights” or “Social Educators”. As selection criteria, materials in Portuguese and published starting from 2009 were tabulated. As mentioned, the time frame is justified by the year when Bill No. 5346/2009, which proposes the regulation of the social educator profession, was presented to the Chamber of Deputies and which after ten years is still being processed as Bill 2676/2019, which provides, among other measures, for the creation of the profession of educator and social educator, appended to Bill 2941/2019 which is ready for the agenda in the Education Commission. The last criterion was the selection of articles in education since many materials found belonged to the health sciences area.

Scientific Electronic Library Online - SciELO is an electronic library comprising a selected collection of scientific journals. For the picking of articles, the following inclusion criteria were used: Brazilian collections, Portuguese language, year of publication (2009-2019), subject area: education, type of literature: article.

In this platform, with the keyword “Social Educators” (16) were located sixteen articles, while with the word games “Social Educators; Care Institutions; Human Rights” (0) no texts were found. The same happened with the set of words “Social Educators; Care institution” (0). With only the term “Care institution” (4) four articles were found. Now with the word set “Care institution; Social Pedagogy” (0) nothing was found. Finally, four texts were mapped with the keywords “Social Educator; Social Pedagogy” (4) while only for the term “Social Pedagogy” (49) forty-nine articles were found.

The CAPES Journals portal, with open and free access, was officially created by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which provides content in electronic formats, such as periodicals, both national and international; several databases that bring together academic and scientific works as well as patents, theses, and dissertations, among other types of materials.

In this website, keywords used were: “Social Educators; Care institutions; Human Rights” (7); “Social educators; Care institution” (12); “Social Pedagogy; Social Educators” (68); “Social Pedagogy; Human Rights” (38); “Care institutions; Human Rights” (29); “Care institutions” (76); "Social Educators" (15).

Google Scholar is a Google Platform search tool that allows one to search academic papers, school literature, university journals, and various articles. On this platform, because of the amount of research found, it was necessary to carry out a thorough analysis of the twenty (20) first pages available.

The keyword sets used were “Social Educator; Care institution; Human Rights” (2,400); "Social educator; Care institution” (2,500); "Social educator; Human Rights” (1,670); “Social Educator” (8,600); “Care institution” (4,900); "Care institution; Human Rights” (1,100); "Care institution; Social Pedagogy” (1,600); “Social Pedagogy” (10,200); “Social Pedagogy; Human Rights” (7,200); “Social Pedagogy; Social educator" (8,500).

On Google Scholar, many studies were found. However, when analyzing the selection, it was observed that the research considered was not related to the training of the social educator. Instead, it brought specific issues in the health area, for example, the work performed with hospitalized children and the role of nursing in child care.

First, to prepare the state-of-the-art the articles published on the aforementioned platforms were mapped and read, following the criteria already indicated. Course conclusion works, articles from the annals of events, and researches that were repeated in more than one platform were excluded from the tabulation. In total, 4 articles were selected on the SciELO platform, 2 articles on the CAPES journal database, and 12 articles on the Google Scholar tool, totaling 18 pieces of research to be analyzed as shown in the flowchart below:

Source: Prepared by the authors (2020).

FLOWCHART 1: Selected Researches 

The selected researches were tabulated and organized according to title, authorship, journals, and year of publication. Of the seventeen articles found within the time frame of 10 years (2009-2019), it was discovered that the research was more focused on the training of professionals working in Social Education with a bias towards Social Pedagogy, as shown in table below:

The selected materials, as they have thematic and theoretical relationships, were grouped into three categories of analysis. In the first, “Social Pedagogy as Science”, the studies by ^{Pereira (2016}), ^{Azevedo (2019}), ^{Santos and Paula (2014}), and ^{Silva (2016}) discuss the formation of the social educator through the theoretical bias of Paulo ^{Freire (2018}).

In the second category, “The professionalization of Social Education: who is the social educator?”, the researches by ^{Müller and Bauli (2017}), ^{Ujiie, Natali, and Machado (2009}), Souza and ^{Sanchez (2017}), ^{Avoglia, Silva, and Mattos (2012}), ^{Barros and Naiff (2015}), ^{Pereira (2019}), ^{Paulo, Nachtigall, and Gões (2019}), and ^{Epifânio and Gonçalves (2017}) emphasize the Child and Adolescent Statute (Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente - ECA) and its relationship with the social educator.

In the last category, “Legislations and the Social Education Professional”, studies by ^{Pereira (2016}; 2019), ^{Cavalcante and Correa (2012}); Carvalho et al. (2015), ^{Avoglia, Silva, and Mattos (2012}), ^{Cintra and Souza (2010}), ^{Araujo (2019}), and Müller and ^{Bauli (2019}) are grouped because of the analysis of the bills in process since 2009, which proposes the professionalization of social educators and social educators. For the analysis and discussion of the data, the most recurrent authorships in the texts were explored as theoretical support: ^{Freire (2018}) followed by Gracianini (2009).

Next, the discussions of each category and the analyses of the works gathered around the themes in focus will be presented.

Social Pedagogy as science

In this first category, the authors contemplated the dialogue between research on the formation of the social educator working in care institutions and research on the need to understand the context of social education and how it was constituted as science.

^{Pereira (2016}) points out that social education is a “theoretical-practical, multi-referential” field of knowledge, which operates in different social contexts, such as in care institutions. The science of this education is called Social Pedagogy. The author explains that Social Pedagogy “is an education that seeks to meet all those who are or are in the process of social exclusion, known as vulnerable, assisted, unaffiliated” (^{PEREIRA, 2016}, p. 1296).

According to ^{Azevedo (2019}), pedagogy acts as a science, as it deals with criteria and paradigms of the theories and methodologies of education. In Brazil, Social Pedagogy began to be highlighted in the 1960s with Paulo Freire (1921-1997), who discussed theories of popular education in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1975). According to Freire (2018, p.11)

[...] liberating education is incompatible with a pedagogy that, consciously or mystified, has been a practice of domination. The practice of freedom will only find adequate expression in a pedagogy in which the oppressed are able, reflexively, to discover and conquer themselves as the subject of their own historical destiny.

Liberating education is portrayed in the performance of Social Pedagogy and, for ^{Santos and Paula (2014}), it is necessary to highlight that this area of education proposes to discuss the service to all people in a condition of social vulnerability, regardless of social class and financial conditions. This is substantiated by ^{Silva (2016}) when conceptualizing Social Pedagogy and its relationship with Paulo Freire’s pedagogical thinking.

The conception of a Social Pedagogy based on Paulo Freire's pedagogical thinking represents an important contribution to the research, analysis, and reflection of the rich and diverse practices of popular, community, and social education arising from social and popular movements, sometimes weakened by lack of foundation theoretical, marginalized by the academy, devoid of training instances, and with completely fragmented production, with no theoretical or conceptual organicity (^{SILVA, 2016}, p. 188-189).

^{Santos and Paula (2014}) also add that Social Pedagogy is not just a schooling process, “but a political process that contributes to human existence” (^{SANTOS; PAULA, 2014}, p. 37). From this perspective, ^{Pereira (2016}, p. 1296-1297) states:

[...] social education is defined as an educational practice that seeks the integration of different individuals and marginalized groups, fighting for them to be considered as subjects of rights; therefore, an education concurrently inside and outside the walls of the school, which belongs so much to the field of formal pedagogical practices without ceasing to be sensitive to the informal.

The articles that compose this category of analysis have an emphasis on the Pedagogy proposed by Paulo Freire and its social contribution to the less economically favored social groups. They also show a concern with training, both for the educator and the student, that is humanizing and liberating.

It is for discussing this educational and humanizing practice that it is necessary to think about the professionalization of social educators who work in care institutions, who work in social education. For it is these professionals who will be together with the children and adolescents who are in a situation of violation of rights, which is based on the topic below when proposing an analysis about the Social Education professionals.

The professionalization of Social Education: who is the social educator?

This category of analysis highlights the institutionalization process of care institutions under the Child and Adolescent Statute. Understanding this process is necessary because, with the foundation of care institutions, it is urgent to hire professionals who work in these places, professionals called educators and social educators.

^{Ujiie, Natali, and Machado (2009}), discussing this historical process, argue that non-formal education spaces emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Brazil, with the enactment of the Child and Adolescent Statute.

It is with the ECA that institutional care becomes one of the foreseen protection measures applicable to children and adolescents whose rights are threatened or violated. Regarding the rights of children and adolescents, Article 3 of the ECA establishes that:

Children and adolescents enjoy all the fundamental rights inherent to the human person, without prejudice to the full protection provided for in this Law, assuring them, by law or by other means, all opportunities and facilities, in order to provide physical, mental, moral, spiritual, and social development in conditions of freedom and dignity (BRASIL, 1990).

As argued by ^{Epifânio and Gonçalves (2017}), shelter, according to the ECA, is a provisional and exceptional measure, used only in cases of serious risk to the integrity of the child and adolescent. It is in this context that currently there are different institutions that care for children and adolescents who are at risk. For Souza and ^{Sanchez (2017}), the shelter, the transit house or transitory house, the home house, republics, or pensions have fulfilled the role of taking care of these individuals. As the person responsible for ensuring this care, the social educator is the professional who will be at the head of the care institutions, promoting the daily care of institutionalized children and adolescents.

The figure of the educator is fundamental, as he is responsible for the routine that the children will have inside and outside the institution, by being responsible for tasks that aim to promote the health, nutrition, and education of these children (SOUZA; ^{SANCHEZ, 2017}, p.14).

^{Avoglia, Silva, and Mattos (2012}) explain that the social educator is the closest reference to an adult, after the removal of the child and adolescent from their family. The authors also emphasize the importance of the relationship between educators and institutionalized subjects. However, they stress the need for continuing education for social educators. “[...] the shelter and its professionals must never intend to compete with the family” (^{BARROS; NAIFF, 2015}, p. 244). It is up to the social educator to provide a favorable environment that guarantees the rights of children and adolescents and their full development.

The formation of the social educator is a challenge to be faced, since from the 1980s to the 1990s, the social professional began to have greater visibility in education and, yet, their activity did not require a broad formation.

The training of social educators is an aspect that deserves more careful reflection given that, as we remember, their training is not a prerequisite for their work. We understand that the training of social educators must be broad and must include specific knowledge about non-formal education, besides solid and critical political training (^{UJIIE; NATALI; MACHADO, 2009}, p. 121).

In this sense, ^{Pereira (2016}) mentions that to be a social educator it is only necessary a desire for change and emancipation of children and adolescents who were abandoned or removed from their family of origin and sent to social shelters. In this author’s research, “The social educator and their professional activity skills: an education worker by LDBEN No. 9394/96?”, the author shows how complicated it is to see this profession regulated.

However, these professionals also face another struggle, which is to see their profession regulated so that they enjoy all the rights inherent to their work. One of the main challenges is in defining the field of professional activity: education or social work? Their activity has demonstrated an educational belonging, indicating that they are education workers, although, in theory, they are not covered in LDBEN 9394/96 (^{PEREIRA, 2019}, p. 317).

The researches that make up this category of analysis indicate that the work of the social educator is significant for the life of the institutionalized subject. In view of this, the study by ^{Paulo, Nachtigall, and Gões (2019}, p. 58) considers “the need, importance, and urgency of research that discusses the relationship between the concepts of popular education and social education and the use of Paulo Freire”.

The surveys that are part of the following category are based on legislative contributions and normative documents to compose the discussions. It is worth noting that, to analyze the guidelines themselves and provide greater dialogue around the professionalization of social educators and other measures that are proposed in the aforementioned bills, it is feasible to address these documents and legislation.

Legislation and the Social Education Professional

This category of analysis encompasses research on the professionalization of social educators. It is verified, through the mapped articles, that regulating the profession of the social educator is in process for over ten years. Currently, with the changes that have taken place in social work, it is essential to professionalize the social educator. It is because of this bias that in ^{Pereira’s research (2016}; 2019) there is an emphasis on the Federal Chamber Bill No. 5346/2009 and on the Federal Senate Bill No. 328/2015, which proposes to regulate the profession of Social Educator.

In this context, the regulation of the social education profession will directly affect the labor market and the valuation of this worker, when the acquisition of knowledges is mandatory, which will enhance the skills and competencies for social work, increasing the level of demand for these professionals and their salary (^{PEREIRA, 2016}, p. 1304).

In the aforementioned Bills, the individual attributes necessary for the work of the social educator are explicit, but it is in the Senate Bill that the fundamental skills to work in social pedagogy are addressed.

Art. 3 The professionals dealt with in this Law are responsible for educational and mediation actions involving human rights and duties, social justice, and the exercise of citizenship with people of any social class, gender, age, ethnicity, culture, nationality, among other particularities, through cultural, political and civic promotion (BRASIL, 2015).

It is noteworthy that even with the implementation of the legislation that provides for the profession of educator and social educator, it is still necessary to analyze some notes, as mentioned in the research by ^{Cavalcante and Correa (2012}). The authors, when carrying out a qualitative study with social educators from a shelter, listed the frustration mentioned by the interviewed educators in the results. In this study, social educators

[...] attributed the feeling of frustration to problems chronically present in the institution: the lack of respect and institutional support to the figure of the employee dealing directly with children who have different biopsychosocial characteristics and conditions (^{CAVALCANTE; CORREA, 2012}, p. 507).

The researches that make up this category show that, for many educators, starting work in a care institution means having the function of educating, however, they end up losing their pedagogical purpose and acting as caregivers. In this sense, ^{Avoglia, Silva, and Mattos (2012}, p. 277) consider that social educators, besides education and values that they will allocate to institutionalized children and adolescents, should also meet some of their affective needs, “offering not only a vision of family but also the representation of family roles”.

It is in this context that the authors have shown the dichotomy that Social Pedagogy professionals still denounce between caring and educating as if both words were not correlated with the construction and formation of the subject’s identity. For ^{Hall (2019}, p. 11-12), “identity becomes a mobile celebration: formed and continuously transformed in relation to how we are represented or challenged in the cultural systems that surround us”.

If identities are formed by the cultural worlds the subjects inhabit, as shown by ^{Hall (2019}), and thus transformed, institutionalized children and adolescents build their identities before and after social care. This is the importance of identification processes as pointed out by ^{Cintra and Souza (2010}). According to the authors,

[...] the existence of another that offers him- or herself as a place of listening and makes investments that go beyond functional interests is essential for children who are in institutions to have a chance to give new meaning to their experiences, thus avoiding interventions aimed at simply hiding, erasing the image of the human misery, which tends to be taken as inherent to those excluded by the social order (^{CINTRA; SOUZA, 2010}, p. 826).

For institutionalized children, the other externalized from culture and society is the social educator, and that is why it is essential that this professional has a broad education to assume a certain function, which is not proposed in Bill 5346/2009, approved in 2017. However, it is in Bill No. 328/2015, approved in 2019, that specialization at higher education is deemed necessary for the training of the educator or social educator.

By defining the field of action of social educators, one of the amendments sought to clarify that professionals should exercise education and mediation in human rights and duties, social justice, and the exercise of citizenship. [...] Another amendment presented by Paim requires higher education for those who enter the career after the bill has been transformed into law. However, it admits high school as a minimum education for educators who are already working on the date of publication of the norm (ARAÚJO, 2019, p. 01).

In January of the same year that Bill 5346/2009 was sanctioned, educators and social educators were included in the Brazilian Classification of Occupations (Classificação Brasileira de Ocupações - CBO). For ^{Bauli and Müller (2019}, p. 158), the CBO is easily accessible, as it is on the Ministry of Labor website, where “[...] it is possible to obtain a report by occupational family, which indicates the relationship of all the activities that the Social Educator and other professionals are responsible for developing”. For the social educator, the following functions are defined in accordance with CBO 5153-05:

5153-05- Social Educator. They aim to ensure the care, defense, and protection of people in situations of personal and social risk, seek to ensure their rights, address them, raise their awareness, identify their needs and demands, and develop activities and treatment (BRASIL, 2015).

For the deputies who took part in elaborating the Bill, this was for the social educators “their most important achievement in the process of social and professional recognition and in the strengthening of their labor identity” (BRASIL, 2015, p. 8).

^{Pereira (2019}) argues that the social educator is an educational worker. Nevertheless, it is essential that there are stricter criteria in hiring these professionals for, in fact, they will be responsible for promoting human rights in the institution in which they will work.

The results of the research developed by Carvalho et al. (2010) reveal that, with the hiring of professionals exclusively in education, there is a significant improvement in the understanding of the common phenomena of the care institution. Thus, educators who had higher education showed a greater understanding of the institutionalized subject, in addition to presenting adequate work proposals.

The authors also state that there is a problem at hand because, when the technical perspective is only centered on education, the opportunity to understand institutionalized children and adolescents is lost in other important dimensions.

Continuing education is provided for by Law. [...] This deficient investment is made even by professionals when they refer that there is no secondary gain in participating in the training they are invited to. This data may even be linked to a certain lack of hope and credibility in the work that has been carried out, as they are faced daily with the reflection of the social and emotional problems which these children and adolescents are affected by (CARVALHO; et al, 2010, p. 60).

The Senate Bill No. 328/2015 originated Bill 2676/2019, which provides for the creation of the profession of educator and social educator and other measures. In this sense, the

[...] PL[Bill of Law] No. 2676, of 2019, authored by the illustrious Deputy Luizianne Lins, requires high school education, and PL No. 2941, of 2019, initiated by Senator Telmário Mota, requires higher education, although high school education is admitted as a minimum level for those who are in the profession when the Law enters into force (BRASIL, 2019).

In 2019, the Education Commission approved Bill No. 2941 of 2019 and rejected Bill 2676 of 2019. However, amendments were attached that established minimum secondary education to exercise the profession of educator or social educator and to observe the professional's education if he or she works in preparing position, career, and salary plans.

Unfortunately, after the analysis presented here of the researches that are part of this category and which address the bills that deal with the professionalization of social education, there is still no enactment of the Law that regulates the professionalization of the educator or social educator.

Graciani (2009), a researcher at Social Pedagogy, states that it is essential to analyze the educational practice of professionals who work in shelters, however, those professionals who privilege life, the human being as a subject, seeing the possibility of building a new social history, are those that will contribute to educational, emancipating practice and, as proposed by Paulo ^{Freire (2018}), to “a liberating education”.

Final considerations

The studies selected and analyzed in this state-of-the-art show that over ten (10) years have passed since the first Bill of Law No. 5346/2009, which proposed the regulation of the professionalization of the social educator. In addition, the mapped surveys show a gap to be filled regarding the training and activity of this professional.

It is in this context that the selected articles highlight the need for research in Social Pedagogy, especially in teacher training courses and undergraduate courses. Social Pedagogy, as a science of social education, aims to promote and guarantee the well-being and promotion of human values of the cared-for subject. On the other hand, even if the continuing education of these professionals is proposed in a Bill that is still in progress, few professionals feel the need to expand their knowledge in Social Pedagogy, which is demonstrated by scholars of this thematic, such as Graciani (2014) and ^{Müller and Bauli (2017}; 2019).

Additionally, the selected articles demonstrated the need for increased research on Social Education in Human Sciences, as most research is concentrated in Psychology and Social and Health Sciences.

When considering this study, there is an absence of public policies that deal with human rights education and the need for actions that provide social educators with continuous training. It is essential that these professionals, who work directly with children and adolescents in social vulnerability, know the historical process of the struggle for the defense of children and adolescents established by the ECA, enacted in 1990.

The ways to advance an education that promotes human rights from the perspective of Social Pedagogy are still vague. To effect a liberating education, according to Paulo ^{Freire (2018}), is to promote a social education that aims to guarantee the oppressed to be part of the formative processes that encompass pedagogy as a field of social education.

Indeed, this state-of-the-art makes it possible to rethink the pedagogical practices that encompass the work of professionals in care institutions with children and adolescents. To rethink pedagogical practices is to reflect on the construction and training of this professional and, as shown by the research and theoretical foundations already announced, this is still a problem to be faced.

Most of the research presented in this text emphasizes the need for continued training of professionals working with children and adolescents who suffered a violation of rights and that are removed from their families of origin and sent to care institutions, that is, professionals who have specific academic training for their activity. In Brazil, unfortunately, there are no public policies to value this profession.

Finally, this research considers that, in addition to the set of research selected in the SciELO databases, CAPES Journals Portal, and Google Scholar in the period from 2009 to 2019, it is important to consider other platforms that include research that addresses the formation of the social educator working in various institutional spaces, so that other perspectives, issues, and considerations are perceived.