Indigenous School Education: Brazilian Policies and the Implementation in Teacher Education

This chapter describes the history of Brazilian colonization and suppression of indigenous peoples as a necessary context to understand the Brazilian policies on indigenous education and the implementation in teacher education. It summarizes the history of education of indigenous people right up to the present, and it describes a particular intervention in teacher education, involving close collaboration among researchers, indigenous teachers, and a community. The chapter provides a clarification of the use of the term “indigenous” and of the researchers’ status as respectful outsiders and allies. Our place of speech, our research and our voices are of non-Indian researchers in the field of education, who are respectful and concerned about an educational program that considers the cultural diversity of Brazilian original inhabitants. Our reflections are not representative for Brazilian indigenous peoples; our analyzes have limits and do not want to overlap the narratives of indigenous peoples who have greater authority in reflection, in the sense that they are authors, and they have authorship of their history and their struggles for the right to have education. What we—as non-Indian researchers—can add to the debate is to provide an empirical evidence (literature) review and results of our empirical investigations. Our reflections are based on aspects related to the social function that school education associated with an intercultural perspective can contribute to ensure better living conditions considering the realities of each indigenous community. Our focus corresponds to sociopolitical aspects and legal frameworks that are linked to educational issues and their impacts on indigenous peoples. In this chapter we first have a brief contextualization about the original inhabitants of Brazil and their trajectory to conquer the right of formal education which respects their history and cultures. Secondly, we present aspects of the trajectory of indigenous school education in Brazil based on a literature review, including an overview of contents and ideas related to official policy regulations concerning indigenous school education, and the principles of intercultural education. We also discuss some implications from the recent regulations of Brazilian curriculum. Finally, we will provide an example of an empirical investigation on indigenous school education developed in the period 2014–2016 on the teaching of statistical topics in indigenous schools of the Xukuru of Ororubá people.