Education and structural racism: teachers’ views on racial discrimination experienced in the workplace

Abstract

The research in question was developed together with the Center for Research and Extension in Human Rights (NUPEDH) and the Research Group Law, Gender and Plural Identities (DGIPLUS), both linked to the Postgraduate Program in Law and Social Justice at the Faculty of Law (FADIR) from the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG/Brazil). We sought to investigate, analyze, and understand how structural racism – a phenomenon understood as systematic racial discrimination present in sociopolitical structures – is experienced by teachers who self-identify as black and who work in the public and private primary and secondary education network in the city of Canguçu located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil. Aiming to achieve the proposed objective, the deductive research method was adopted, comprising bibliographical research (scientific articles, theses, and books) and critical-reflective analysis of the collected material. As the aim was also to understand the reality of black teachers, empirical research was carried out through semi-structured interviews with all 41 black teachers out of a total of 775 teachers who work in the educational system in the city of Canguçu. Among the obtained results, the fact that the majority, that is, 99% of the teachers interviewed, stated that they had experienced situations of prejudice in work relationships and when teaching in the classroom stands out. Both the number of black teachers in the city of Canguçu and the testimonies of the interviewees corroborate the existence of structural racism in the educational sphere, since, as the authors who underlie the research emphasize, racial discrimination is one of the elements that make up the sociopolitical organization and economic aspects of Brazilian society.