WHEN THE SCHOOL BECOMES A SHELTER: BETWEEN THE EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION AND THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF SOCIAL PROTECTION IN DISASTER CONTEXTS

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the role assumed by public schools in contexts of socio-environmental disasters, particularly when converted into temporary shelters for populations affected by floods, landslides, and other extreme climatic events. It starts from the understanding that the recurring use of educational institutions as emergency spaces for reception highlights not only their community relevance and promotion of social development and care, but also the historical insufficiency of public policies regarding housing, urban planning, and social protection in Brazil. This is qualitative, bibliographic research with an interdisciplinary approach, grounded in authors of critical education, contemporary sociology, and social geography, such as Paulo Freire, Ulrich Beck, Zygmunt Bauman, Miguel Arroyo, and Milton Santos. It is argued that, although the school plays a fundamental role in welcoming vulnerable populations, its conversion into a shelter reveals processes of naturalizing state precariousness and the shifting of public responsibilities onto already weakened educational institutions. The study concludes that the recurrent use of schools as contextualized emergency spaces exposes structural contradictions of contemporary society, marked by social inequality, climatic vulnerability, and the insufficiency of human protection policies.