Família, saúde, educação: articulações entre o público e o privado

Abstract

In the Essays section of this issue, Interface brings its readers studies based on different theoretical bases, coming from various fields of knowledge centered on the institution of the family. They penetrate the fields of healthcare and education, establishing a productive dialogue with them, and one that leads to instigating thinking as to the relations between this institution, of a private nature, and the public sphere. The specificity of this issue, however, lies in the theme that underlies all the work, both that which discusses several aspects of home life, and the others. This underlying unity results from the way in which the studied themes are analyzed, as the frame of reference for all of them is the social inequality and cultural diversity of Brazilian society, both of which affect family organization and the possibilities of gaining access to formal education, as well as types of healthcare and usage of public healthcare services. These many essays try to understand the singularity of the situations experienced by the underprivileged population within the scope of private life and in their relation with the public sphere. The texts on the family, which are the fruit of research and theoretical reflection, give rise to questions concerning the different dimensions of home life, particularly among the poor. The analyses look upon the family as a private institution responsible for social reproduction, in its dual dimension, i.e., biological reproduction and socialization, as well as a vehicle that conveys cultural standards that order social life, therein included informal education. The family is also a social group in which affectivity, whether positive or negative, and sociability may be expressed more freely than in the public sphere, and a unit that offers support, protection and healthcare to its members, especially children and the aged. In parallel, the institution of the family is configured as an arena of tension between the many interests and desires of the individual members that make up the group as a whole. Thus, domestic life takes place in a nucleus at once protective and fiery. All of the papers in the Essays section illustrate, furthermore, the many changes that have become manifest in the organization of the family, articulating an internal analysis of the domestic unit with macro social processes that take place in the economic plane and within the sphere of the State. The changes reveal the heterogeneity of domestic arrangements