Ensino jurídico para formação cidadã em países com profunda desigualdade social

This article is part of the debate on training for the exercise of citizenship in contexts of social inequality. It takes an analytical approach to the themes of citizenship, education and inequality, exploring their elements. It discusses the idea of citizenship based on Janoski and Gran's (2002) distinction between liberal, consensual, republican and pluralist conceptions. It argues that citizenship education is based on two basic processes: i) awareness and exercise of rights and ii) awareness and assumption of duties and responsibilities, based on the construction of the political community. It identifies aspects common to theories of citizenship to show how they raise philosophical questions that must be addressed in both processes. It points out that in countries of profound social inequality there are complementary challenges to this training, such as dealing with the corrosive processes of citizenship caused by inequality, considering inequalities in the attribution of rights and duties, dealing with the effects of inequality in teaching and producing results that affect reality. Finally, it assesses the role of legal courses in citizenship education. It concludes that the use of legal arguments based on individual interests to justify measures that put the community at risk may be a symptom of the corrosion of citizenship in Brazil.