Social issue through the history of constitutionalism: the 1988 Brazilian Constitution and the right to education as a requirement for the realization of fundamental rights

Abstract

By following constitutionalism throughout history, it is possible to extract, with clarity, that the social question accompanies philosophical and political thinking about social and power relations since antiquity. But it is Hannah Arendt, in the comparative analysis between the American and French Revolution, who realized that a people in conditions of misery does not live in a situation of freedom to establish, with rationality, a public debate about rights and opportunities. From the modern era, the concept of the State of Rights and fundamental rights arises. The Federal Constitution of 1988 presents a very clear and defined proposal for social rights, such as the right to education. But historical structures of a consolidated colonization from the perspective of exploitation and social segregation, still present, associated withthe logic of patrimonialism, clientelism and other social problems, notably institutionalized corruption, prevent structured social evolution in the education and training of citizens. Certain locations in Brazil, where the level of social development measured is still quite low, even for national parameters themselves, suffer more intensely from the perverse dynamics of social immobility, the result of structural problems in society.