More than two years have passed since the first warnings of a serious epidemic arrived that, soon after, would become a pandemic. The impacts were (and continue to be) immeasurable. Its deleterious effects certainly impose many tasks for the field of educational psychology: the production of scientific knowledge to identify and qualify these impacts as a contribution to the actions that must be implemented in an attempt to overcome these consequences for the teaching-learning process, especially for students from public schools, who were deeply affected and who experienced and continue to experience the most diverse forms of difficulties in accessing educational and social rights, which are revealed in the material conditions posed by social inequalities substantiated by class, race and gender conditions , among others. Such challenges and tensions require the apprehension of the movement in its concreteness, with a view to going beyond the phenomenal appearance forged by expressions of immediate “solutions” that favor the perpetuation of individualizing practices in the educational field, among other spheres of social life, as a tendency to respond to complex and contradictory processes.

These social phenomena, in turn, require rigorous analytical lenses that do not lose sight of the materiality of the real, so that “[1845] 2007, p. 43), which involves, among other mediations, the apprehension of the determinations of social reality guided by mechanisms to strengthen collective strategies of struggle and resistance guided by joint social responsibility in the face of the intensification of the neoliberal offensive.

Social inequalities, which are historical and chronic in our country, manifest themselves perversely in education; although there is a substantive and continuous elaboration of critical knowledge that shows its many faces and consequences, as well as pointing to possibilities of overcoming, many problems persist invisible and/or masked by ideological precepts immanent to the capitalist sociability movement. A significant gap remains between available knowledge and the everyday reality of schools. Furthermore, there is a certain naturalization of this process, on the one hand by the ideas conveyed mainly by the mainstream media, which tends to point to the lags of Brazilian students in the results of system evaluations and their consequences for the economic development of the country and, on the other hand, On the other hand, to the invisibility of the reality experienced by millions of children and young people in their schooling process based on the antagonism of class interests.

Some attempts to hide and silence social inequalities, however, were wide open during the pandemic. The possibilities of schooling for children from the popular classes showed, during and after the restrictions on the movement of people (to reiterate: they were absolutely necessary and even fell far short of what would be ideal), not only the precarious conditions of access to the teaching-learning process, but to housing conditions, basic sanitation, food (in)security, in addition to domestic violence, unemployment and, among many other forms of suffering, fear, illness, death and mourning. It is known that the rates of contagion, morbidity and mortality were also unequal, affecting the most impoverished populations much more. The dehumanizing effects of the intensification of the structural crisis of capital (^{Mészáros, 2002}) are manifested in the movements of denial, contempt and delegitimization of science, anchored in the tendency to strengthen irrationalist premises that are revealed, among other elements, in the commonly disseminated assertion that “we are all in the same boat”, as one of the attempts to forge a harmonic sense of collective belonging, with the intention of camouflaging the real concrete determinations of affirmation of neoconservatism built on principles of irrationalism. In this sense, we consider the propositions of ^{Lukács (2020}) about founding elements of irrationalist ideology:

“The sharpening of the scientific crisis, the need to choose between continuing the path of dialectics or taking refuge in the field of irrationalism usually coincides - not by chance - with major social crises, because, just as the development of the natural sciences is determined, above all, , by material production, so also the philosophical consequences, which arise from new questions and answers, from their problems and attempts at solutions, depend on the class struggles of the period considered. (^{Lukács, 2020}, p.99)

It should be noted that the basic determination of irrationalism is promoted by the reactionary bourgeoisie by attributing to the subjects a certain breath in the field of worldview, illusion of a supposed ideal of freedom and personal independence, of moral and intellectual superiority (^{Lukács, 2020}). This political-ideological dimension is manifested in social reality, among other aspects, in the attacks on social rights hard won by the working class in the scope of the educational process, among other dimensions of social life guided by the dictates of capital, as expressed by the tensions contrary to free public education, according to the constitutional principles of Art. 206 item IV which presupposes the “[...] free public education in official establishments; [...]” (^{Brasil, 1988}, p. 109), camouflaged by purportedly modernizing propositions aligned with the interests of the ruling class built on the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) of No. 206/2019 in progress, which proposes in its wake the costing nature of tuition fees in public universities to the population.

In the current context of a pandemic and the adoption of narratives that potentiate contagion, morbidity and mortality, research that was in the initial phase or data production had to be revised to adapt to the new conditions, which made it possible to monitor the multiple faces of schooling in the pandemic or, more specifically, the immense and profound educational and social inequality that plagues Brazilian society. The investigations carried out then, especially those that followed the classes or remote and hybrid meetings, constitute a highly relevant historical record, whose data can and should be revisited in the future. Difficulty or impossibility of accessing digital platforms because they do not have minimum equipment and internet signal, because they have to share a precarious device with the whole family, because of the lack of school meals, because of the material that did not reach the students, because of the limited space for a family by the thin walls that did not filter the noises of everyday life in the neighborhood, by unemployment, by the plague that lurked, by the death so close, which took relatives and neighbors... these were the dramatic scenarios experienced by schoolchildren and witnessed by countless researchers over those two years. But they were also reasons for the frustration of teachers and administrators, many of whom also performed work activities without equipment, adequate spaces and time available to prepare and record video classes imbricated by affectations of helplessness, discouragement and silencing experienced in the process of production and reproduction of the force of work, structured by the class, sexual and racial division forged by the intensification of expropriations of dignified conditions of existence, especially involving the female and black population layer (^{Gonzales, 2020}).

Such professionals, paradoxically, facing the present contradictions, sought to engage in the strengthening of collective alternative paths oriented to the ethical-political commitment with the students through the collective organization focused on the structuring of teaching conditions that provide opportunities for the appropriation of systematized knowledge, but that they also had to take care of the house, children, relatives, women who are mostly. It was no different with the mothers of students. It was no different with the majority of the Brazilian population, a work force that produces wealth, but does not have access to it, not even to the minimum necessary for survival.

The damages are many and go beyond school issues, which are directly related to health and, in particular, to mental health, which were strongly affected. Feelings in profusion: fear, insecurity, frustration and anxiety have become chronic and will leave their mark on everyone.

The tasks for the field of educational psychology are many. Amid the drastic measures against science and research in general, which include not only cutting funds, but also counter-propaganda to the knowledge produced by it, resistance remains and is strengthened so that its social function is fulfilled and a historic response can be given. Producing knowledge about the reality of the pandemic and its consequences for millions of students, teachers, managers, mothers and the community is one of the conditions for implementing effective actions to overcome it. It should be noted that this movement cannot be immediate or the result of individual actions, but that it must start with the pressure for consequent and socially committed public policies to be adopted. This undertaking is collective and must be based on an ethical-political project of commitment to democracy, justice and equality.

As for this Journal, we hope that it will be one of the vehicles for the dissemination of this knowledge that denounces, but also announces, as proposed by ^{Freire (1983}, p.101): “woe to those among us who stop their ability to dream, to invent the courage to denounce and announce”. May we bring to share with all those interested the interventions that could lead to the overcoming of these complex problems and to a leap in the quality of education in general, but especially in public schools.

In this issue we publish four articles that focus on higher education related to conditions of exclusion and the adoption of inclusive practices; They are: Prejudice and prounists: “your place is not here”, Public Policies and Social Mobility: Graduates of the University for All Program (PROUNI) and Psychological Support to University Students: the expression of suffering in virtual workshops and, as a methodological contribution, Methods of study in Higher Education: construction and validation of a questionnaire. Conceptions of child development: a study with educators from public daycare centers is an article that addresses a relevant aspect of this segment of education, as the educators' conceptions define their practices and have a profound impact on the development of young children. Several articles present review studies, providing an overview of topics of interest to the area, such as the recurring issue of indiscipline, in the article Indiscipline and democratic action in schools: a systematic review; the intervention on violence at school and on gender issues, with the articles Confronting violence at school: what scientific productions point out as measures? and Educational Interventions for Learning about Sexuality and Gender in Brazil: A Scope Review; a study on giftedness and high abilities, in the article Self-awareness in Talented: Analysis of Scientific Production (from 1995 to 2015) and, completing, a work on Behavior Analysis: Stimulus Equivalence and Reading Teaching: Characteristics of Participants in Brazilian Empirical Studies from 2008 to 2017. Of particular relevance, in the Sharing section, a unique theoretical contribution: Vygotsky's revolution.

Once again, we have to say that we, authors, reviewers and members of the editorial board, also faced many difficulties during this period. It would not be possible to complete this task without the immense collaboration of our masters, masters and doctoral students who spare no effort to make this Journal public. We reaffirm our deep gratitude to each and everyone whose work makes this issue of our periodical: Jaqueline Lima da Silva Nery, Jessica Silva, Priscila da Costa, Regina Prandini, Ruzia Chaouchar and our newest and super competent Carolina Telis Garcia, as well as to Waldir Alves, from EDUC. We reiterate our thanks to the Portal of Journals of PUC-SP and, in particular, to PIPEq, whose resources have allowed our Journal to continue its mission of welcoming and disseminating the knowledge produced by the area of Educational Psychology.

We invite everyone to an instigating reading that raises questions (^{Freire & Faundez, 1985}) about the educational reality, among other dimensions of social life, which is configured as a founding element in the possibility of fostering critical capacity in the face of reality, guided by values and principles that make up a corporate project beyond capital.