Religião, educação e laicidade: a atuação adventista através do Projeto Adote um Leitor

Abstract

This study analyzed the actions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church through the Adote um Leitor Project, implemented at José Antônio dos Santos Municipal School, in the city of Lagarto, state of Sergipe (Brazil), during the 2021–2022 period, analyzing its educational and social outcomes and its implications for the principle of secularity. The general objective was to examine how the Church’s involvement through this project engages with, impacts, or potentially tensions the principle of secularity within the public school context. Methodologically, this is a qualitative study of an interpretative-comprehensive nature, grounded in a hermeneutical approach as articulated by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. The corpus consisted of preexisting materials related to the project, including institutional documents, printed pedagogical materials, audiovisual records, and testimonies from mothers of participating children, school representatives, and sponsors. The theoretical framework draws on the concept of secularization as developed by Peter Berger, as well as on discussions of secularity based on the contributions of Marília Domingos and Sérgio Junqueira and Marcos Vinícius Reis. The findings indicated that the Adote um Leitor Project was well received by the school community and positively perceived by society as an educational support initiative, promoting significant improvements in reading development, socialization, and the expansion of personal expectations and future aspirations among the children benefited, without evidence of explicit proselytism. However, the study also revealed that the presence of a religious denomination within a public school may contribute to the naturalization of this institutional presence and generate tensions with the principle of state secularity, thereby requiring ongoing and careful vigilance.