SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND EDUCATION: CONTRIBUTIONS TO CITIZENSHIP FORMATION AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

This article analyzes the pedagogical dimension of social movements and their strategic relevance to building critical and emancipatory citizenship in Brazil. This qualitative, bibliographic study was based on the theoretical contributions of Maria da Glória Gohn, Paulo Freire, Miguel Arroyo, and Boaventura de Sousa Santos and supplemented by recent studies published between 2022 and 2025. The objective was to investigate how non-formal educational practices developed within collective struggles for rights challenge abyssal thinking and foster an ecology of knowledges. The results indicate that movements such as the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST) and the Homeless Workers' Movement (MTST) function as educational territories that validate life trajectories and experiential knowledge frequently rendered invisible by traditional education. These spaces go beyond political demands and become environments of epistemological innovation in which critical consciousness is produced through transformative praxis. The study concludes that connecting systematized school knowledge with the ethics of social resistance is essential to a pedagogy capable of responding to contemporary challenges, promoting cognitive justice, and strengthening democratic life.