Relações étnico-raciais e de gênero e o discurso da sala de aula de português: uma abordagem etnográfica interacional

Abstract

The current study is about an ethnographic research developed in a third grade Portuguese class of an elementary public school in Belo Horizonte, with 8 to 10 year-old students. The aim of the research is to discuss the relationship between the teaching of Brazilian Portuguese and the possible visibility of social categories such as race and gender among others, in the social interaction context. In this perspective, the social identities are seen as dynamic relationships, situated and discursively constructed. The approach is guided by the principles of Interactional Ethnography, Cultural Anthropology, and Critical Discourse Analysis. The data compilation took place based on the references of interactional ethnography and it involved the observation of the interactions between the participants (teacher and students, 16 boys and 14 girls) from February 15th to December 2nd of 2005. The data correspond to a total of 169 classes registered via videos and production of field notes. Additionally there were formal and informal interviews and analysis of several artifacts: notebooks, school books, readers, text productions, formal evaluations, and official documents. The main questions that conducted the study were: Which materials were used in the process of teaching Portuguese? Did these materials already present within themselves the possibility of contemplating and reflecting on racial and gender issues? Did racial and gender issues become present or not in the interactions between the participants? How were they approached? To answer these questions, an analytical process applying different angles of the analysis such as Microanalysis of Classroom Events was used. The results of the study show that the use of the principles of interactional ethnography and microanalysis of classroom events constitute a theoretical and methodological tool which is very explanatory of the questions involved in the interactions which are developed in the school environment. By means of this procedure, it was possible to see that we can find racial and gender relations among the processes that became visible in classroom events and the different ways in which they are expressed in society, at school, and in the classroom most of the time in a stereotyped way and that they go beyond the content taught.