The religious discourse in a school for early childhood education: Between silence and discrimination

Abstract

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/198271991162

This article discusses some of the results of a dissertation conducted in the Post Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, developed in a municipal school for early childhood education of the municipality of Duque de Caxias, located in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is an ethnographic research with participants observations in a class of children aged 5 and 6 years old from October 2010 to August 2011. Theory is based on studies of Bakhtin (1995, 2006), secularism (BOBBIO, 1999; CUNHA, 2011; FISHMANN, 2008), and philosophy and sociology of childhood (BENJAMIN, 1993; CORSARO, 2009, 2011; SARMENTO, 2010). This article aims to analyze how religious discourses that circulate in the everyday life of a public school for early childhood education are articulated ethno-racial issues, causing in public school exclusion and discrimination. The study found that non secular public school, with the naturalization of public explanation of a creed and the use school as a place of evangelization, disregards the differences and has prejudices against mainly to African-Brazilian religions.

Keywords: Childhood, Early Childhood Education, Democracy, Secularism.