Racismo, educação e a construção identitária de jovens negras de uma escola municipal de ensino fundamental

Abstract

This research deals with the construction of the racial identity of the black youth from a municipal elementary school in the city of Pelotas. The qualitative investigation prioritized to listen to the juvenile voices as the main source of data, based on their experiences and participation in the investigative process. The central objective of this research was to understand how a group of black young female students from a municipal elementary school builds their racial identity. The specific objectives were to verify where, how and in what situations these young women notice themselves as black women; to analyze how these young women, based on their experiences, experience/materialize/notice the concepts of racism, prejudice, discrimination and race relations; and to find out how to belong to the black social group that has repercussions in the school lives of young women. The theoretical framework relied upon authors of Cultural Studies, Critical and Post-Critical Theories of Education, Postcolonial Studies and, mainly, authors who have dedicated themselves to Education and Ethnic-Racial Relations, inspired by anti-racist theory. The methodological instruments used for data generation were photographic records, individual semi-structured interviews, a press conference and field diary notes. The material that built up the corpus of the research data for analysis were photographs produced by these young women, based on the proposition of four questions, the transcription of the interviews and the notes of the field diary. The method adopted was content analysis, and the central categories of data interpretation were black identity, racism and education. All the participants of the research identified themselves as black and the construction of this racial identity is verified from the social relationships they have established within their families and the places they attend, based on unequal relationships of power that privilege the hegemonic identity of the white man, European, male, heterosexual, adult, while black identity is neglected and subordinated. The research reflected the young women way of living and building this black identity of themselves, revealing their own ways of being and living their condition as belonging to this racial group in the age group in which they are. It also analyzed the construction of the racial identity of young women as black women, regarding to racism, prejudice and racial discrimination suffered by them, and it also discusses about education, in order to explore issues related to schooling and social ascension. Young black people claim their blackness today and resist whiteness as an ideology that maintains structural privileges and racial inequalities in Brazil. As a society, it is necessary to deconstruct this place of whiteness and build another look at blackness, contributing to reinforce positive feelings and representations about the racial identity of black and brown people from an anti-racist education, in the fight against all kinds of social oppressions.