National Education Plan: Indigenous School Education

Abstract

Fotos do arquivo da família ExplanationOne of the basic demands made by the popular indigenous movements that emerged from the start of the 1970s in Brazil was recognition of the right to quality school education, adapted to the unique sociocultural and linguistic characteristics of the many different indigenous peoples inhabiting the country.This proposal signalled a clear rejection of the integrationist and assimilationist ethos that had oriented the imposition of schooling and writing among indigenous peoples from the very beginning of Portuguese colonization. At the same time, it also meant a clear valorisation of the school's potential as a space for critical reflection and discussion of the living conditions of indigenous peoples as they become included in Brazilian society.Along the same lines, the school was conceived as a means for indigenous groups to access essential information on the larger world of which they now inexorably formed part.The idea that there is not necessarily any incompatibility between the introduction of schooling among indigenous peoples and the preservation of