EVANGELICAL FAMILIES AND SCHOOL ASPIRATIONS IN URBAN PERIPHERIES

Abstract

The article aims to analyze whether and how evangelical religiosity influences the relationship of working-class families with schooling. A qualitative ethnographic study was conducted in a neighborhood on the outskirts of São Paulo, including participation in religious rituals and in-depth semi-structured interviews with families belonging to different class fractions and evangelical denominations. The findings indicate that religiosity provides both symbolic and material support to families, legitimizing their efforts at self-regulation and moral control. However, its influence on educational aspirations and on practices aimed at achieving them varies according to families’ social position. The role of religion in fostering more ambitious aspirations and more effective practices depends on conditions that only the higher fractions are able to secure. Among the lower fractions, families lack the strength to cope with the vulnerable circumstances in which they live, limiting themselves largely to regulating the role of the mother and the male figure. The churches attended by the families studied serve a public with similar demands, which, for the higher fractions, helps sustain longer-term educational aspirations, such as higher education, whereas the lower fractions are unable to ensure even the completion of compulsory schooling, with religious peers also having low levels of education.