Strategies in the struggle to overcome educational exclusion: the role of social workers

This article deals with the possibilities of disruption of exclusive practices in education through the actions performed by the social workers (ATES), who propose an emancipative popular education, which represents a contrary movement to the dominant hegemony. It consists of a case study with a qualitative approach (TRIVIN S, 1987), presenting partial results of the research developed with agrarian reform settlers in the cities of S o Gabriel and Santa Margarida dos Sul (State of Rio Grande do Sul). The assistance provided by social workers of several different fields is understood as a governmental policy, achieved through negotiations with the Ministry of Agriculture and with sectors of the settlement areas defi ned by the Instituto Nacional de Coloniza o e Reforma Agrária (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform - INCRA), being, therefore, a social movement directed related to the education. It is possible to conclude that, although receiving little attention of the capitalist State, these movements represent educational actions of an emancipative nature for the involved social actors.