ADVANCES AND CHALLENGES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ANTI-RACIST EDUCATION IN BRAZIL¹

Considering the context of the 20th anniversary of Act 10.639/2003 and 15th of Act 11.645/2008, the present article analyzes the advances and challenges in the implementation of Anti-racist Education in Brazil. In the first section, we discuss racism as a complex structural and multidimensional phenomenon, whose approach in the educational context requires teachers equipped with specific theoretical and methodological tools, as well as racial literacy. The second section examines recent publications that have mapped the main difficulties in implementing anti-racist education at schools, whilst pointing to an important gap regarding racial issues in teacher education. In the third section, focusing on the perspective of future teachers, we zoom in on the perception of undergraduate students at the University of Brasília regarding the subject ‘Education of ethnoracial Relations’ as a curricular component in basic teacher training. The triangulated examination of these three analytical dimensions points to a mutually reinforcing relationship between shortcomings in basic teacher training and the difficulties in teaching African, Afro-Brazilian and indigenous histories and cultures in elementary education. The absence and/or irregular or non-mandatory provision of curricular components aimed at training future teachers remains an obstacle to implementing anti-racist approaches to Brazilian cultural diversity in the country’s education system.

Keywords:
ethnoracial relations; racism; anti-racist education; teacher education.