Abstract
The social literature on street children, for the most part produced by NGOs, represents an effort to organize, disseminate and theorize this issue. Part of a democratic political-ideological territory, the analyses stress the socioeconomic aspects of poverty and social exclusion. Three basic themes can be identified: the family, high failure rates in school and child/adolescent labour. This literature gives us insight into one of the unpaid social debts that is a legacy of Brazil's 1964-84 military dictatorship: the plight of street children, that is, boys and girls who live in the streets or who make their livings through activities that take place there. The discussion must also take into account Brazil's dire economic crisis of the late 1970s. The article employs an interpretative perspective that stresses sociological, historical and cultural factors, without disregarding the economic factors that affect generalized impoverishment. It also underscores the special circumstances of the political transition from military rule to a constitutional state. The first civil government was empowered in 1984 and a new national law for children and adolescents was statuted in 1990. During this period (1984-90), antagonistic social and political forces have struggled to enforce numerous projects, in an environment where repressive authoritarian strategies for social control (the police and the justice system) have clashed with democratic propositions for full-time schooling and social welfare policies.
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