Rural Life, Urban Curriculum: Formative Dilemas in Integrated High School

Abstract

This article aims to present reflections on the expansion of Professional and Technological Education (EPT) within the Federal Network, especially in the context of the Federal Institute of Paraíba (IFPB), and its influence on the education of students from rural areas, with a focus on the provision of Integrated High School (EMI) at the Federal Institutes (IFs). The discussion follows a bibliographic approach, grounded in authors who address the themes of EPT, curriculum, and ruralities as territories of knowledge and existence. It is argued that, although the expansion of IFs into the country's interior represents an advance in democratizing access to education, the persistence of a predominantly urban curriculum challenges the culture and integral formation of these young people, as a curriculum with an urban logic not only disregards the knowledge, identities, and ways of life of rural students but also compromises the implementation of the formative principles of EPT itself, contributing to their symbolic violence. By problematizing the curriculum as a field of symbolic disputes, the article shows that the integral formation proposed by EMI can only be realized through contextualized pedagogical practices that value diversity and promote a sense of belonging for historically marginalized subjects. Therefore, it is understood that overcoming educational duality and symbolic exclusion requires curricular reconstruction and the ethical-political commitment of institutions to inclusion, social justice, and the valorization of ruralities within the scope of EPT.