The right to the city as a perspective for the practice of Critical EE and emancipatory citizenship:

an approach about socio-environmental and territorial injustice in the school context

Abstract

This paper discusses the right to the city and the exclusion of young people from the periphery to special regions of the city of Rio de Janeiro as an issue for Critical Environmental Education at school. The research sought to highlight the area of the city effectively occupied and enjoyed by young people on the periphery of a public school, located in the neighborhood of São Cristóvão, which mainly receives students from the favelas of Caju, Tuiuti, Barreira do Vasco and Mangueira. To assess the area of the city actually used by the students, the cell phone tool (Google maps) was used, which demarcated the space routinely traveled by students, in relation to the epicenter of the territories of their communities. The results reveal a routine that is based almost exclusively on going to school and returning home. Deprivation of access to the city, justified by explicit or implicit actions to exclude young people from the periphery, has negative consequences for their development, limiting their future prospects and reducing opportunities for their personal, intellectual, cultural and professional training. From this survey, the students indicated their interest in getting to know other parts of the city (a lake, a forest and a sandbank), located in privileged areas, where they do not usually go. Visiting these places has enormous educational potential for recognizing the socio-environmental injustice scenarios to which these youth from the periphery are subjected and contrasting a perspective of collective rights and knowledge to claim them, through an emancipatory education.