Abstract

The work developed here presents some of the reflections carried out during the Master's study, in which we propose to understand, more deeply, the implications of the debate about literacy today and its reflection on the pedagogical practices of public schools, in particular, on the practices developed by the Rural Education teachers. The effort was to bring the literacy debate closer to the theoretical-methodological assumptions of historical and dialectical materialism, as a tool for analysis and propositional commitment to the education of workers' children. The paths presented here show the character of dispute, in which the concept of literacy has been worked throughout the trajectory of Education, as well as the social forms of use of which it has been used in public schools in the country. the commitment, on the debate, of the term literacy, intensified in the last four decades, as a result of the needs placed on Education on a global scale and the demands of today's world of work. In counterpoint, we raise the importance of debating the concept of literacy in its strong and radical sense, as the ability to deepen the reading of the word and the reading of the world. As in Freire's terms, the ability to understand the world, together with the acquisition of reading and writing and all the knowledge historically accumulated by humanity, qualifies, therefore, the social role that public education plays in the lives of subjects. Keywords: Literacy. Education. Historical and dialectical materialism.