Capacitação de professores para o enfrentamento do racismo na escola: contribuições da Psicologia social

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to describe a teacher training intervention study with basic education teachers to address racism in schools in Sergipe, Brazil. The specific objectives were (1) to identify whether basic education teachers recognize the existence of racism in schools and understand the importance of ethnic-racial socialization as a strategy to combat it; (2) to develop and provide training for public basic education teachers to confront racism; and (3) to present the methodological approaches, results, and discussions arising from the training program. To achieve these objectives, the dissertation was grounded in the Theory of EthnicRacial Socialization and organized into four chapters, followed by conclusions and final considerations. The first chapter presented a discussion based on the understanding of race and ethnicity processes related to the racialization and ethnicization of groups, as well as the different types of racism and their forms of expression in society and schools. The second chapter addressed the Theory of Ethnic-Racial Socialization and highlighted its importance within the school context. The third chapter presented an empirical study on basic education teachers’ perspectives regarding ethnic-racial socialization and the fight against racism, conducted through focus groups with 12 teachers from a public state basic education school. The data were analyzed using the Iramuteq software and the Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC) method and interpreted through theories from Social Psychology. The results showed that, although teachers reported situations of racial discrimination, they tended to naturalize, minimize, or deny the existence of racism in schools, often justifying it as a form of joking. The findings also indicated that teachers perceived students’ behavior, family dynamics, and the community as the primary factors enabling racism, which contributes to reducing the school’s responsibility as an important agent in combating it. Finally, the fourth chapter outlined the methodological steps of the intervention training program entitled “Dialogues with Teachers for Continuous Anti-Racist Work in Schools,” carried out with basic education teachers from the State Education Network of Sergipe in partnership with the Observatory of Prejudices in Schools of Sergipe (OPPES). As a result of the training, teachers began to recognize racism within schools; however, they still faced difficulties in confronting it and believed that significant changes could be achieved through teacher training initiatives and the incorporation of anti-racist strategies into everyday school routines. The paths taken throughout this dissertation demonstrate the importance and necessity of interventions focused on ethnic-racial socialization in education, especially those involving teachers, in order to promote anti-racist education and combat the violence experienced by Black and Indigenous people. Nevertheless, it is expected that this study may contribute to the expansion of knowledge, as well as to the development of new intervention projects and public policies that promote anti-racist education through a deeper understanding of racism and its expressions, and through ethnic-racial socialization as an important means of enabling strategies to combat racism in schools.