SOCIAL PEDAGOGY: EPISTEMOLOGY OF HOPE IN THE INSTITUTIONAL TERRITORY

The history of institutionalized childhood and adolescence in Brazil remains the object of study by researchers because there are many issues to be demystified, dismembered and revisited. From the period of the Wheel of the Exposed until today, in effect the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent of 1990, the institutionalization is still a frequent method, even though the legislation treats it as exceptional. The text defends the possibility of working within these environments from an educational perspective, relying on social pedagogy, as theory and methodology, and on the social educator, as a professional who accompanies children and adolescents in protective measures. To this end, it presents research results (in progress) based on bibliographic research on the themes in question, and which supported the empirical research carried out during the elaboration of the dissertation entitled "Social education and the autonomy of adolescents in protective measure: a Freirean conception. institutional reception" in the Graduate Program of the University of Caxias do Sul, seeking to contribute to the minimization of damage in this institutional environment through social pedagogy, having it as a strategy and as an epistemology of hope in the institutional territory.