Ethnic-racial relations and teacher training: racial discrimination situations in early childhood education

Abstract

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/198271991092

Law 10.639/03, which establishes the compulsory teaching of African History and Afro-Brazilian Culture History, represented a great step forward towards building an anti-racist education. However, early childhood education is absent from the legal regulation. In addition, there is little reference to early childhood education in studies that address ethnic-racial relations. On the other hand, situations of racial discrimination are not uncommon in nursery schools and preschools. The objective of this paper is to discuss situations of discrimination and prejudice experienced in everyday childhood education involving ethnic-racial issues and to reflect on their implications for teacher education. In order to achieve this objective, we discuss some events witnessed by students of a Pedagogy Course during curricular training. The discussion includes two aspects. One is the students’ difficulty to identify situations of racial discrimination as such, what we understand to be the manifestation of the “myth of racial democracy”. The second aspect is related to the strong presence of the “mark bias” in the situations reported, in which the skin tone and hair type of small children are the targets of discrimination. Finally, we point out how teacher education is the key to coping with situations of racial discrimination and ethnic prejudice, as well as for the construction of an anti-racist education.

Keywords: Early childhood education, Racial discrimination, Teacher education.