The teaching of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous culture and history in Brazilian basic education in the 21st century

Abstract

This paper approaches the public policies for teaching Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture in Brazil in the 21st century. It is part of a broader study about the implementation and impacts of Federal Laws 10.639/2009 and 11.645/2008, which made the study of these topics mandatory across the national territory. Our methodology privileged the critical analysis of bibliographic and document sources about the problem. The study highlighted black and indigenous movements’ demands and achievements, as well as federal government policies, projects and actions for fighting racism and promoting a positive education in racial and ethnic relations in the country’s basic education schools. After a decade of implementation of the Law, advances, problems, and challenges stand out in the field of teacher training, curriculum, and didactic materials.

Introduction

‘Africa has a history'. With this sentence, historian Ki-Zerbo begins his text ‘Introdução Geral' for the collected writings entitled História Geral da África, published in Brazil in 2010. ¹ And it is added: indigenous peoples, too, have histories. These affirmations may sound indispensable in a multicultural country like Brazil. However, several studies show that the histories of indigenous and Africans ought to be rewritten, taught, and learned by Brazilians, direct descendants of those peoples. This is because, according to Ki-Zerbo, that for centuries this history ‘was disguised, camouflaged, disfigured, or mutilated’, whether by the `force of circumstances, ignorance, or interest' (Ki-Zerbo, 2010, XXXII).

By means of several public policies, programmes, instructions, and curriculum policy guidelines, the Lula administration (2002–2010), with the support of social movements, sought to promote the valuing and recognition of ethnic and racial diversity in Brazilian school education. This occurred through a set of strategies for fighting discriminatory, racist cultures and practices that still exist in the day-to-day of schools and education systems. Such practices have historically excluded (whether subtly or openly), children, youths, and adults, mainly black and indigenous, thus compromising the guarantee of the right to quality education for every citizen. Thus, in the last few years, the federal government has sought to ‘promote a positive change in the reality experienced, by reversing the perverse effects of centuries of prejudice, discrimination, and racism' (Brasil, 2005, 8). This paper presents results of investigations on the implementation of these policies for the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture in Brazilian basic education.

The academic and social debate on the study of African and indigenous history and culture is situated in the historical context of the Brazilian nation’s formation by different peoples (European, African, and indigenous), recognizing that this process was marked by diversity, struggles, and tensions between the different peoples and cultures. Since the Portuguese colonization, school education has valued European-origin peoples and cultural traditions, to the detriment of African and indigenous origins, among others. This Eurocentric-based ethnocentrism, as well as the diffusion of a superiority of peoples, races, and cultures, have produced, on the one hand, the culture of racism, exclusion, marginalization, and on the other hand, an opposition that prompted movements of struggle and resistance. In Brazil, the historical roots of those struggles can be found in the various forms of resistance of black people against slavery, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, particularly with the formation of the quilombo communities, like Quilombo dos Palmares, ² which became a symbol in the struggles for freedom in Brazil. Throughout the 20th century and in the early 21st century, the black movement faced practices of racism and social discrimination disseminated throughout the Brazilian society, whether in the sphere of academic and scientific production, the press, the job market, and the various spaces of coexistence, whether social, political, or cultural.

In this context, reflecting on this subject and its repercussions for history teaching and learning practices, albeit overdue in Brazil, represents a possibility to fight European ethnocentrism, the ‘Europe-centrism’ that is so ingrained in the teaching of history that is practised in schools. It also means debating and rethinking some of the constructive elements of history teaching, such as academic historiography, curricula, school cultures, textbooks and other didactic material, teacher training, the school knowledge of history, teaching methodologies, and evaluations. All these components have been traditionally pervaded, whether implicitly or overtly, by certain ideas, values, and notions which could contribute to easing or strengthening racist practices against black and indigenous people. On the other hand, they can strengthen the culture of respect for differences and plural identities, based on the principles of alterity (‘otherness') and full equality of rights in a democratic society.

Public policies for fighting racism

Fighting racism in Brazil has been the focus of several agents. In the academic debate, it is important to note that, since the second half of the 20th century, UNESCO has fostered research and studies about Africa in different parts of the world. Moreover, in Brazil, important investigations and publications have been developed, among which is A Integração do Negro na Sociedade de Classes, by sociologist Florestan Fernandes (1978). According to Arruda (2011), it is a work that represents a turning point in the analyses of the issue of black people in Brazil, which is marked by racial, even racist, theses attached to evolutionism and social Darwinism. At the same time, it does express his enduring interest in cross-ethnic relations, which he had shown in his earlier study Brancos e Negros em São Paulo, in collaboration with Roger Bastide. His work is, therefore, a watershed in the studies on racial relations, having contributed for building another image of black people’s situation, since it breaks with the discourses that explained inequalities between blacks and whites only as a class matter; it bares the reproduction of racial inequalities and makes evident the marginal condition of blacks and mulatos. According to Arruda, Fernandes’ study spots, and expands the comprehension of, prejudice and racial discrimination arising from the preserving of archaic social forms (Arruda, 2011).

In the social field, since the 1970s, with Brazil’s democratization movement, social movements’ organization and struggles grew, particularly the black, women, and indigenous movements against racism, prejudices, marginalization, inequities, and the various practices and forms of racism. Ethnic and racial issues made it into the struggle agenda of the black community movements. From the early 1980s to the early 2000s, a diversification occurred in social organizations related to the black movement, with some of them defending different theses, yet keeping in common the struggle for advancing resistance, denouncement, and the proposition of public policies focused on affirmative actions for Afro-descendants in Brazil.

Social movements have achieved significant victories in the fight of racism since the 1980s. Racism has become a non-bailable, non-prescribable offence as established by the Federal Constitution of Brazil, ³ enacted in 1988:

Art. 5. All are equal before the law, with no distinction of whatever nature, and with guarantee, to both Brazilians and foreigners living in the country, of the inviolability of their right to life, freedom, equality, security, and property, under the following terms:

XLI – The law shall punish any discrimination that attempts against the fundamental rights and liberties.

XLII - The practice of racism is a non-bailable, non-prescribable offense, subject to imprisonment under the terms of the law.

The Brazilian Constitution, enacted in 1988, established the fundamental rights and guarantees of man in its Article 5, whereby it defines racism as a crime, as well as discrimination and prejudice practices of any nature. Since then, other laws have been enacted in order to complement and further regulate what is set forth in the Constitution, and thus protect and guarantee citizens’ equality in the exercise of democratic coexistence in the country. Among these is Law 7.716 of 5 January 1989, which changed the Brazilian Penal Code, hence establishing in Paragraph 3 of its Article 140:

Art. 140: Injuring someone by offending the person’s dignity or decorum.

Paragraph 3: If the injury consists of using elements referring to race, color, ethnic group, religion, origin, or one’s condition as an elderly or disabled person: (Content provided by Law 10.741, of 2003).

The penalties foreseen for such crimes is one to three years of imprisonment and a fine.

In the sphere of political institutions, some controversy exists about the subject. After 20 years, according to experts, there are difficulties to assess the extent of the compliance with this Law in the country. Generally speaking, racism crimes are treated as injuries, and are therefore charged under Article 140 of the Penal Code, which establishes a softer penalty to the offender. The arguments that anti-racism legislation does not by itself guarantee an effective fighting of racism are not consistent; rather, the Law is a means for citizens to fight for equality of rights. Punishing racial discrimination acts inhibits prejudiced acts while sensitizing different sectors of society to the permanent pursuit for an actual State of rights, the pillars of which are citizenship, freedom, and human dignity. Therefore, school education is fundamental for promoting and forming these principles and values.

On 21 March, Brazil’s Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR) ⁴ was created. It was a historical demand of the black movement and is seen as the recognition of the struggles of the Brazilian Black Movement. According to this agency, the date of its creation is emblematic: it is the United Nation’s (UN) International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, celebrated worldwide in memory of the Sharpeville Massacre. One of the purposes of the Secretariat is to design, coordinate, and articulate policies and guidelines for promoting racial equality across the country.

Within this socio-historical movement are the construction of new legal frameworks and the designing of public policies aimed at overcoming the post-1980s social and racial inequalities. Several policies and projects have been implemented: the demarcation of indigenous lands; affirmative actions for the black population of Afro-descendants – such as racial quotas in public service exams and in higher education institutions; health programmes for black and indigenous populations; specific programmes for entering diplomatic careers; a job-market-entry programme for black people; and specific actions in the area of culture and education of Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples.

Fighting racism in basic education schools

Fighting racism in schools is part of the agenda of social policies. Governmental efforts have increased effective access to school education in all levels, through actions ranging from the construction of non-racist educational practices, to revising how blacks, indigenous, and women have been traditionally treated in the history taught in schools, in textbooks, and in teaching practices, to structural changes in teacher training programmes, as well as in basic and higher education curricula.

In this perspective, Federal Law 10.639 of 9 January 2003 was sanctioned by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, making the inclusion of studies of ‘Afro-Brazilian History and Culture' mandatory in the education system curriculum. In 2004, the National Council of Education approved the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic and Racial Relations and the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture. The enactment of Federal Law 10.639/2003 was considered an actual landmark in the adoption of public policies and affirmative actions for recognizing the ethnic and racial diversity in Brazilian education.

The enactment of Law 10.639/2003 has prompted changes in Law 9.394 of 20 December 1996 – the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB) – by adding to articles concerning the teaching of history:

Article 26-A. In elementary and secondary schools, whether public or private, the teaching of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture shall be mandatory.

Paragraph 1 - The school program content referred to in this Article’s heading shall include the study of History of Africa and of Africans, the struggle of black people in Brazil, Brazilian black culture, as well as black people in the formation of the national society, thus recovering the contribution of the black people in the social, economic, and political areas pertaining to the History of Brazil.

Paragraph 2 - The contents referring to Afro-Brazilian History and Culture shall be taught throughout the school curriculum, particularly in the areas of Arts Education and Brazilian Literature and History;

Art. 79-B. School calendars shall include the 20th of November as the 'National Black Consciousness Day.⁵

The focus of the change is the mandatory study of African and Afro-Brazilian History and Culture. The legal text defines ‘what to teach', ‘programme content', ‘recovering' the importance of the struggles of Africans and Afro-Brazilians, as well as these peoples’ history and culture. Paragraph 2 of Article 26-A establishes that the contents will be treated in all disciplines, particularly in Arts Education, Brazilian Literature, and Brazilian History. It is noteworthy that it is not exclusively the object of history, but also of correlate subject areas.

Article ‘79-b' of the LDB’s ‘General Provision' included 20 November as the Black Consciousness Day in the school calendar. It is a reference to the memory (day of the death) of Zumbi dos Palmares, one of the main leaders of the slaves’ struggle in Quilombo dos Palmares for ending the enslaver regime; to many leaderships of social movements and to historians, institutionalizing 20 November in the school calendar is an important counterpoint to the official memory, which celebrates 13 May as the Day of Liberation of Slaves, ‘a feat of Princess Isabel', acclaimed in History as the Redeemer of Slaves.

Social movements’ struggles and demands prompted new changes to LDB. Federal Law 11.645, of 10 March 2008, determined the mandatory inclusion of the study of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous History and Culture in both public and private primary and secondary education. Changes were made in Article ‘26-A' and its respective paragraphs, which henceforth read as follows:

Article 26-A. In basic and secondary schools, whether public or private, the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture shall be mandatory.

Paragraph 1 - The school program content referred to in this Article shall include several aspects of history and culture which characterize the formation of the Brazilian population and which arise from both ethnic groups, such as the study of History of Africa and of Africans, the struggle of black and indigenous peoples in Brazil, Brazilian black and indigenous culture, and black and indigenous people in the formation of the national society, thus recovering their contribution in the social, economic, and political areas pertaining to the History of Brazil.

Paragraph 2 - The contents referring to Afro-Brazilian and Brazilian indigenous History and Culture shall be taught throughout the school curriculum, particularly in the areas of arts education and Brazilian literature and history.

The changes to LDB by the Federal Law 11.645 of 10 March 2008, did not revoke, but rather complemented the previous laws with the purpose of valuing one of this study's socio-cultural matrices, i.e., Brazil’s indigenous populations. According to Meirelles (2010), the new law adds to previous contents the indigenous history, culture, struggle, and contributions to the formation of the Brazilian people.

Therefore, the public policies of the State – which has the regulatory power over school education in the country – express, through their legal instruments, programmes, and projects, the correlation of social and political forces at certain historical moments. The teaching of history, its contents and goals, the role of the discipline, as well as its educative intentionalities have been the object of discussion, debates, and theoretical and political disputes in various spaces of knowledge formation, production, and transmission. The measures have prompted controversies. In the view of this paper, respecting, valuing, and incorporating Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture in school education cannot be treated as a mere legal precept, but as a critical position regarding the role of history as a formative component of youth’s both historical and citizenly consciousness. History is a fundamental field of knowledge in the struggle for building a democratic, multicultural society.

The legal instruments are meant to ‘respond to the demand of the Afro-Brazilian and indigenous population for establishing affirmative action policies, i.e., reparatory policies, which also recognize and value their history, culture, and identities' (Brasil, 2005, 10). It is a historical necessity not only for proposing and designing a policy, but also implementing, executing, and assessing anti-racist educational policies that fight discrimination practices against black and indigenous people and their descendants in the school environment and, more broadly, in the Brazilian educational context. In this perspective, the National Council on Education (CNE) instituted, in 2004, the ‘Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic and Racial Relations and the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture'.

In its text, the document (Opinion Statement CNE/CP 03/2004) details the implementation of the dispositions of Federal Law 10.639/2003. It is a comprehensive document that contains theoretical and political foundations, with ethnic and racial relations as the fundamental concept for the entire proposal. Among the legal dispositions, it is worth highlighting: ‘…the guidelines shall be followed particularly by institutions developing teacher initial and continued training programs' (Article 1); also, ‘higher education institutions shall include in the contents of curricular disciplines and activities of their courses the education of ethnic and racial relations' (Article 1, Paragraph 1). Other relevant dispositions on the teaching of history refer to material and financial conditions, with the obligation for education systems to provide schools, teachers, and students with didactic material and other bibliographic items necessary for studying the subject. However, research (Silva, 2011) shows that the lack of didactic material (books, texts) is one of the main obstacles for the curricular development of African history in the final years of basic education.

These documents complement each other and prompt reflections on various fundamental aspects of history teaching and learning, such as teacher initial and continued training for basic education on a national level. Therefore, since 2003, the Ministry of Education has adopted a set of initiatives, programmes and actions for the whole country in order to create conditions to this end. Many of the actions are executed in association with social organizations in the black movement which are committed to the study of racial themes. In July 2004, the Secretariat for Continued Education, Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion (SECADI) was created with the purpose of uniting the actions of the Ministry of Education dedicated to subjects such as youth and adult literacy, rural education, environmental education, indigenous school education, and ethnic and racial diversity – themes that were previously handled by various secretariats and agencies of the federal government. SECADI’s (2011) purpose, according to the secretariat itself, is ‘contributing for the reduction of educational inequalities through the participation of every citizen in public policies that ensure the expansion of access to education'. ⁶

In 2005, the National Program of Affirmative Actions for the Black Population in Federal and State Higher Education Institutions (UNIAFRO) was created with the purpose of instigating actions of the Centers for Afro-Brazilian Studies (NEABs), focused on research, extension, and support in various state and federal universities. Working in association with other entities, and with support from UNIAFRO, NEABs operate in the training of teachers and the designing of didactic–pedagogical material for the education of ethnic and racial relations and Afro-Brazilian and African history and culture, among other actions.

After Federal Law 10.639/2003 was enacted, sectors of the Black Movement began to request the formulation of a national plan for implementing the Law. Due to this movement, the Ministry promoted coordinated actions called ‘Regional Dialogues', which had the participation of various segments of society involved with the themes. As a result, the first National Plan of Implementation was produced, and it was launched in May 2009, based on suggestions collected during the six ‘Regional Dialogue' meetings. The National Plan of Implementation of Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic and Racial Relations and the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture focuses, among others, on: the catalyst role of the Ministry of Education; the expanded dialogue for implementing the Education of Ethnic and Racial Relations; the goals of actions; the Plan’s main axis; the attributions of the Education Systems in Brazilian education; the actions of federal, state, and local governments, and those of the Councils on Education; the Education Institutions in the public and private higher education system; the Collegiate Groups and the Centers for Afro-Brazilian Studies, as well as correlate groups; the forums of Ethnic and Racial Education and Diversity; the different education levels and modes; and education in remaining areas of quilombo communities.

It is therefore a set of actions and attributions that surpasses the limits of history classes. It involves different agents and spaces. The main actions for basic education are:

Ensuring initial and continued training for teachers and professionals on this education level for incorporating contents of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous culture, as well as developing an education for ethnic and racial relations.

Implementing actions – including those of students – in research, development, and acquisition of didactic and pedagogical material that respect, value, and promote diversity, in order to support pedagogical practices that suit the education for ethnic and racial relations.

Providing libraries and reading rooms with didactic and supplementary material covering ethnic and racial themes, and suitable to children’s age and geographical region.

Encouraging and ensuring the participation of children’s parents and guardians in the construction of the political and pedagogical project, and in the discussion on ethnic and racial themes.

Approaching ethnic and racial themes as a multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary content throughout the school year, in order to build pedagogical projects that value both community knowledge and oral communication as building tools for the learning processes.

Collectively building pedagogical alternatives with the support of suitable didactic resources, and using supplementary material about the themes

Enabling, in pedagogical coordination teams, the recovery of, and access to, historical, cultural, linguistic, geographical, and scientific references on diversity-related themes.

Supporting the organization of a pedagogical work that contributes to building and strengthening the self-esteem of youths, teachers, and other education professionals. (Brasil, 2006, 48–49)

In the text of the document, the need for both initial and continued training is made evident concerning not only the teaching of those themes, but also multiculturalism-oriented education actions. However, this requires deep changes in curricula, higher education pedagogical projects, and teacher training (Guimarães and Couto, 2008). After a decade of implementation of the Law, many problems remain in the fields of teacher training and curricula. The place occupied by Africa’s and indigenous peoples’ history is still questioned in history colleges. Moreover, rethinking concepts, values, and ideas that are current among instructors and future teachers occurs slowly, at a slower pace than desirable.

A second problem that requires attention is the production of knowledge, sources, and didactic materials for pedagogical work in schools. A careful reading of history books conducted by the Ministry of Education’s National Program for Didactic Books reveals small, singly occurring progresses in the teaching of African history. With regard to the study of indigenous peoples, Meirelles affirms that ‘the cultural diversity is presented in a generic way, and with inconsistent examples'. There have been progresses in the application of Law 11.645/2008, but she affirms that the ‘new publications have not reached teachers' (2011,.292). According to Meirelles, a feature common to these books is the superficiality in treating the question of indigenous peoples.

With regard to academic production, research indicates an invisibility of the subject in the years prior to the 2000s. The investigation on state-of-the-art studies about teacher training in the 1980s and 1990s does not show it clearly. It is not until the 1990s that the subject becomes visible to education and research institutions, especially those specializing in training teachers for elementary and higher education; in the 2000s, it becomes a subject with an increasing demand and presence in the fields of research, education, and extension (Paula and Guimarães, 2014, 445).

Final considerations

In all regions of Brazil, successful experiences with pedagogical alternatives and didactic materials approaching the themes above can be found. However, many problems, weaknesses, and challenges remain. Experiences developed in many schools are not shared or published throughout schools and universities. In one study in public and private elementary schools, Silva (2011) observed a rich variety of alternative materials produced by history teachers for the teaching of these themes, from texts to videos. One of the most used sources is films, according to the study. However, in many schools, due to the lack of materials and teachers suitably trained, the study of ethnic and racial themes is still very limited.

Another aspect to be analysed is the interdisciplinary character of ethnic and racial themes. It is extremely relevant to discuss the interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture. It is a methodological option for engaging in dialogue with the various fields of knowledge, such as geography, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, literature, philosophy, among others. This dialogue will further the comprehension of singularities, historical processes, cultural exchanges, mutual contributions, and contradictions in process. The interdisciplinary attitude will benefit the incorporation of diversified sources and problems, thus avoiding the traps of ethnocentrism, of privileging an external, superior view that determines the course of history. Therefore, a historical attitude will be adopted that, as Ki-Zerbo’s remarks, ‘will not be a vengeful attitude, nor one of self-satisfaction, but rather a vital exercise of collective memory (2010, LIII). Returning to Manicheisms (hero vs villain, dominant vs dominated) or the idealizing and mythicizing of African and indigenous peoples in history will be avoided.

It is believed that, in Brazil, significant advances have been made in the challenge of building an educational project focused on the construction of positive ethnic and racial relations and on the perspective of fighting racist, discriminatory, excluding practices in the educational and school environment, in comparison to what was practised in the past. However, this project still faces difficulties, many of which are related to teacher training, and to an excluding concept of history diffused both within and outside the school culture. This requires from educators a permanent, day-to-day struggle in various spaces, against all forms of racism and discrimination. History as a formative discipline has a central role both in the struggle to overcome racism and in the challenge of building an inclusive, republican, liberating, and plural education; as Ki-Zerbo affirms, History, as a human science, and more than any other discipline, ‘is equally made for man, for the people, for clarifying and motivating its consciousness' (2010, XXIII). This is one major challenge for Brazilian educators.