Jeitinho Brasileiro as as Pedagogical Praxis Inherited Epistemology in Social Studies Education

• In Event: Theorizing Social Studies Education from Below: Civic Knowledge, Praxis, and Possibility from Los de Abajo

Abstract

Objectives
This paper theorizes jeitinho—a Brazilian practice of improvisation, relational problem-solving, and everyday ingenuity—as an epistemological and pedagogical resource. Framing jeitinho as a civic practice in social studies opens possibilities for challenging dominant narratives rooted in individualism and institutional engagement. Drawing from memory, community praxis, and feminist theory, I explore how jeitinho reimagines what counts as knowledge, theory, and civic action.

Perspectives and Techniques
Like rasquache, jeitinho is a form of epistemological resistance, an inherited praxis that crafts ingenuity from limitation and forges possibility from inequalities mislabeled as deficits (Ybarra-Frausto, 2003; Monreal, 2024). In Brazil, jeitinho is a collective philosophy of people “de baixo” who navigate inequalities in pursuit of thrivance and dignity (Barbosa, 1992; Rodrigues et. al., 2011; Rodrigues, 2011; Zanon, 2024). Growing up, jeitinho meant covering my shoes with plastic bags on rainy days and writing lightly in textbooks so my cousins could reuse them. In school, jeitinho became an informal pedagogy—clever acronyms, whispered reminders, and scribbled notes—an improvised curriculum of care that resisted competitive, individualistic schooling. At home, jeitinho was an onto-epistemology of resistance, creativity, and collective wisdom passed down by my grandmother, who used to say, “Neutro? Só sabão!” (“Only soap is neutral”). This truth, which I later recognized as theory echoes bell hooks’s (1991) belief that theory emerges from lived experience as a site of healing. Thus, I conceptualize jeitinho as a meaning-making mode that emerges from practices dismissed and marginalized by uplifting the epistemic insight of “vira-latas” (“mutts”) who innovate, translate, and dribble inequalities.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
Grounded in feminist, decolonial, and community-based epistemologies, this work draws on autoethnographic narrative and lived experience as both method and theory. I weave personal memories of growing up in Brazil as entry points to theorize jeitinho as a praxis of collective care, informal pedagogy, and refusal.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
The analysis shows that acts of “getting by” are in fact forms of everyday theorizing, civic engagement, and resistance. Tracing jeitinho through familial teachings, school practices, and community spaces, I offer evidence that marginalized communities enact rich, place-based civic and historical knowledge that is systematically excluded from curricula and academic discourse. This work substantiates the claim that theory is being made and lived daily by those at the margins, and that recognizing these forms of knowledge challenges the epistemic boundaries of social studies and education more broadly.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This work theorizes jeitinho as everyday knowledge-making that 1) challenges what counts as valid knowledge in education, 2) honors folk epistemologies, and 3) centers marginalized communities’ daily practices. In social studies, jeitinho challenges individualistic and institutional civic narratives by elevating ingenuity, caregiving, problem-solving, and refusal as civic acts. These experiences are rich sites of civic and historical learning, revealing that theory is not confined to the academy but is lived, embodied, and expressed daily by those “de baixo”, whose ingenuity and refusal generate vital, generative ways of knowing.

Author

• Carolyn Silva, University of Nevada - Reno