Indigenous School Education: for a discussion of culture, child and active citizenship

Abstract

Since the 1970’s experiences with differentiated indigenous education have been undertaken in Brazil. These experiences earned legal and governmental recognition in the Constitution of 1988 and specific legislation that followed, and indigenous school education has been constituted as a differentiated form of education that is bilingual and intercultural, a recognition conquered by indigenous policies and by those who work with indigenous peoples and the effectivation of their citizenship. Nevertheless, this model has been implanted unequally on national territory. The Xikrin, the indigenous people of the Jê language that inhabit southwestern Pará, have experienced various models of school education, few of which effectively meet the contemporary and constitutionally established framework. Nevertheless, their adhesion to school is high, as are their expectations. Based on field observations and on the experience of some pedagogical projects among the Xikrin, the article considers the reaons for their adhesion, the insertion of children in school discipline, the pedagogical working conditions and the possibilities for intercultural communication in this process, believing that, because of their particular characteristics, the Xikrin case shedsnew light on the current debate about intercultural education and the expectations of the indigenous peoples to learn about the culture that surrounds them and about their children and their future.