Educação, turismo, hospitalidade: intersecções e reflexos pedagógicos sobre a comunidade gramadense

Abstract

This article promotes a dialogue among the fields of Education, Cultural Heritage, and Tourism, taking as its object of study the city of Gramado – one of the most prominent tourist destinations in Brazil and South America. It focuses particularly on the public policies implemented in the educational sector since the late 1980s, which introduced the subject Education for Tourism into the municipal school curriculum. Later, with the implementation of the “Base Nacional Comum Curricular” (BNCC), the concept of Hospitality was incorporated as a structuring axis of the diversified part of the curriculum, complementing the BNCC with local social, economic, and cultural specificities. Drawing on Alvarez-Uria (1992), Noguera-Ramírez and Marín-Díaz (2012), who argue that the school is constituted within the social environment to meet the imperatives that arise from it – particularly through the curriculum, understood as a political-cultural instrument that shapes individuals in specific and particular ways, as emphasized by Costa (2001) – this study, aligned with the theoretical field of Cultural Studies, aims to address the following questions: What are the intentions behind the public policies influencing the curriculum organization in Gramado's schools? What impacts do they have on the relationship between residents and the municipality’s cultural heritage, given the relevance of the tourism activity developed in Gramado? In pursuit of possible answers, the study employs Cultural Analysis of pedagogical documents related to the Education for Tourism subject, as well as the Guiding Document for the Territory of Gramado, especially the proposed curriculum for the diversified part. Among the contingent findings of this investigation, a strong link is observed between education and the local economy, under the premise that schools are teaching students – and, consequently, their families – specific ways of being, living, and coexisting with tourism, which plays a central role in the city. Centered around hospitality towards visitors, this educational approach seeks to raise awareness about the responsibility of maintaining tourism, which, from an economic perspective, stands as a cornerstone of the city’s development. Simultaneously, on the social level, due to the pedagogical effects of these policies embedded in the curricula, there is evidence of a weakening sense of belonging among Gramado’s residents in relation to their cultural heritage, thereby hindering their ability to perceive their own city as a place of memory.