Gender Relations and Access to Education: Northeastern Migrants in Pontal Mineiro (1950-1960)

Abstract

This paper presents a study about women who migrated from Brazil's Northeast with their families to the "Pontal Mineiro" region in the 1950s and 1960s and of those who were born in these decades. It examines the difference in schooling between girls and boys born in Minas Gerais who are the children of migrants, which repeats the situation found in the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba, the main sources of migration, where women had higher literacy rates than men. A bibliographic review about women's education in those states is also presented. The paper also sought to understand the power relations between men and women, analyzing the cultural formation of northeastern man, particularly the type known as "billy-goat", a strong and violent man, who dominates the home and family and how women learn to find "gaps" and conquer a space of emancipation through schooling

Northeastern Migrant Women; Pontal Mineiro; Schooling