Senso prático e ensino das relações étnico-raciais na sociologia escolar: uma análise de correspondência múltipla

Abstract

The 20th century in Brazil was marked by the struggles for rights among Black, Indigenous, and white populations who aligned themselves against eugenic ideologies, the myth of racial democracy, and the whitening policies implemented by scientists, social scientists, educators, and politicians from a Brazilian elite after the legal abolition of slavery in 1888, especially during the first half of the 20th century. These beliefs endorsed ideas of racial, social, and cultural degradation, pushing Black and Indigenous populations to the margins of society. It was only with the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship in the late 20th century that these populations began to see some results of their struggles materialize in the educational field. Important resolutions and laws have been passed in recent decades, including the law on racial quotas for Black and Indigenous students in public universities, as well as the mandate to teach Afro-Brazilian (2003) and Indigenous (2008) history and culture in primary and secondary education. The present research is situated within the context of teaching Sociology, primarily through the concepts of Field, habitus (Bourdieu, 1994; 1996; 2009; 2021), and practical sense (Bourdieu, 2009), aiming to go beyond purely schoolrelated conditions as it seeks to understand how and driven by what factors (both objective and subjective) teachers respond to the everyday challenges of teaching ethnic-racial relations in the context of school Sociology. To this end, two hypotheses are proposed. In summary, the first is based on the notion that teachers' social networks influence their educational practices. The second pertains to the presence and approach to the ethnic-racial theme in the context of school Sociology, as this theme is not always included as a programmatic content as required by Laws 10.639/03 and 11.645/08, and when it is included, its teaching may take on a tangential, essentialist, and/or discriminatory character. The theoretical-methodological perspective adopted was Bourdieu's dispositionalist Sociology, through which it was possible to analyze the dispositions of teachers as well as the structures of the field of school Sociology teaching, which operate in a way that constrains teachers' practice, "forcing" them to act in a determined manner. In other words, leading them to "play" according to the "rules of the game" or in a way that transgresses them. The research data was collected through (i) in-depth interviews with ten teachers currently teaching Sociology, including both men and women; analysis of each teacher's course syllabi; and analysis of the Pedagogical Political Projects (PPPs) of the schools where they teach. As the main analysis method, we used Multiple Correspondence Analysis, through which it was possible to map the positions of teachers in a given relational configuration, correlating them with supplementary variables associated with teaching practices and active variables associated with the social properties derived from teachers' social networks. The results revealed, among other things, that those teachers with the highest volume of specific cultural capital (knowledge related to the ethnic-racial theme) also tend to have the highest academic qualifications; be involved with social, political, and cultural groups; and approach the theme with moderate frequency. On the other hand, teachers with the highest levels of engagement with the ethnic-racial theme are those who identify as Black; who have experienced racism; and tend to approach the theme very frequently. In another analysis of the results, it became clear that teachers tend to respond to the situations of everyday school life they are immersed in in four ways. These are through what we named as: (i) Reflexive effect of habitus → field; (ii) Coercive effect of field → habitus; (iii) Tendency effect of field ⟷ habitus; and (iv) Situational effect of field ⟷ habitus.