Escola e sociedade de consumidores: um estudo com crian as "catadoras" School and consumer society: a study with recycling children

O artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa cujo objetivo foi analisar os significados atribuídos à "cata o" de resíduos sólidos recicláveis por um grupo de alunos de uma escola municipal de S o Leopoldo que tinham sua existência vinculada a essa atividade. O material de pesquisa foi composto por entrevistas, feitas com oito crian as, desencadeadas por seus desenhos e registros em diário de campo. O estudo tem como referencial teórico o pensamento de Michel Foucault, as ideias do "Segundo" Wittgenstein e a obra de Zygmunt Bauman. A análise possibilitou inferir que aquelas crian as: a) participavam da cata o, sobretudo, porque desejavam consumir, estando integrados à sociedade de consumo via uma "inclus o diferenciada"; e b) praticavam jogos de linguagem matemáticos que possuíam especificidades, mesmo que guardassem semelhan as de família com aqueles que constituem a matemática escolar. This article presents the results of a study whose main purpose was to analyze the meanings attributed to the recycling of solid residues by a group of children of a municipal school located in Sao Leopoldo , Brazil. These schoolchildren had their existence tied to that work. Empirical data was composed by interviews, conducted with eight children, which were based on pictures that they had previously drawn and notes registered in field diary. The theoretical framework of this research is based on Michel Foucault's thinking, Wittgenstein's later ideas and the work of Zygmunt Bauman. It was possible to infer from the research data analysis that those children participated in the recycling work mainly because they wanted to consume, being integrated into consumer society via "differential inclusion"; and that they practiced specific mathematical language games, even though they maintained family resemblance with those that constitute school mathematics.