Racismo, interculturalidade e diversidade étnico-racial nos Programas de Pós-graduação em Educação: Universidade Federal de Sergipe (Brasil) e Universidade da Madeira (Portugal)

Abstract

This master’s research focuses its analysis on a Brazilian university and a Portuguese university, examining how these institutions address themes with the potential to combat ethno-racial inequalities and question the reproduction of hegemonic culture. The study aims to understand the approach to interculturality, racism, and ethno-racial diversity in the Master’s and Doctoral programs of the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Sergipe (PPGEDUFS) and the Master’s in Educational Sciences and Pedagogical Innovation and the Doctorate in Curriculum and Pedagogical Innovation at the University of Madeira (UMa), considering the curricular structure of each program and the theses and dissertations produced. A qualitative comparative methodology was adopted, employing bibliographic and documentary research, with content analysis based on Cellard (2012). The procedure included the analysis of the curricular structure of the programs and the theses and dissertations produced in the courses. The theoretical conceptions of these themes in Brazil and Portugal reveal different influences of Gilberto Freyre’s thought, which manifest in specific ways within each national context. In Brazil, Freyre’s work contributed to the construction and perpetuation of the myth of racial democracy. In Portugal, his lusotropicalist theories were appropriated, producing a tendency toward silencing and denying racial issues, which are systematically replaced by the discourse of interculturality. This conceptual substitution allows the avoidance of a direct confrontation with racial hierarchies and structural inequalities that affect racialized communities. In Brazil, discussions on interculturality are linked to Indigenous movements that have historically demanded recognition of their cultural and territorial specificities. In contrast, Portugal directs its interculturality policies mainly toward the integration of immigrants, especially those from non-European countries. However, despite differences in current political approaches, Brazil and Portugal share deep structures of racial inequality that have common historical roots and manifest through similar mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization. In the analysis of the programs’ curricula, in the PPGED-UFS, these themes appear in two elective courses and are also included in the bibliographic selection of one required Master’s course and two required Doctoral courses. In contrast, the curricular structure of the Master’s in Educational Sciences and Pedagogical Innovation at Uma showed a significant absence of these themes, both in required and elective courses. In the Uma Doctorate, the issues of race, interculturality, and ethno-racial diversity appear only occasionally, limited to the objectives and theoretical references of a single course. Regarding academic production, PPGED-UFS recorded a higher number of works, even within the limited period analyzed (2018–2024), totaling nine dissertations and six doctoral theses. At Uma, three dissertations were found in the Master’s in Educational Sciences and Pedagogical Innovation. These data show how graduate education programs, as higher education institutions, can either reproduce or combat ethno-racial inequalities, depending on how they structure their curricula and guide academic production.