Poverty, race and skin color: perceptions and relationships among children at school

Abstract

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/198271991154

Here we present the results of a research whose objective was to analyze what poor and/or black boy(s) and girl(s) were saying and how they were acting about unequal treatment, shaped by discrimination through mockery, swearing, derogatory nicknames, separations, among other things, experienced at school. These children were students from the 5th year of public primary school located in a mid-sized city in São Paulo’s countryside, Brazil. The intention was to analyse the practice of class and racial differentiation that hierarchize, discriminate and exclude certain children, performed by adults and/or by children themselves. The ethnographic study used personal stories, a questionnaire about denomination and classification of color/race, answered by them in the classroom, socioeconomic survey, observation of children in different school environments and semi-structured interview with children and teacher. Among other results, we observed that children who were black and mulatto, poor and with a history of educational failure, suffered bigger discrimination at school from teachers and other children. In addition we found that even among those who are poor and/or black, it takes place the building of borders that each one does to distinct themselves from others. Therefore, the research recognized the diversity of positions related to their perception of race and class. When verifying how children's actions are mediated by school educational practices, we support that in such spaces it should be granted possibilities for them to speak - and be heard - about their doubts and desires, about what they do and why they do it, in their relationships. And finally, to provide the emergence of their curiosities, imagination and inventiveness to, maybe, flare up something new in our world that strives for incompleteness.

Keywords: Children, Poverty, Race, School.