Two ‘Brazils’: Socioeconomic status and education performance in Brazil

Abstract

In 1953 Jacques Lambert published his seminal work entitled Le Brésil, Structure sociale et institutions politiques, which in 1959 was published in Portuguese as Os Dois Brasis (in English, The Two Brazils). In this text, Lambert argues that there is a remarkable dichotomy present in Brazil, with a dynamic South and a feeble, almost sick, North-Northeast. This article does not intend to provide a new interpretation of Lambert's text; rather, our objective is to analyse the contemporary scenario of education in the Brazilian context from the perspective of social and economic inequalities as portrayed by this author. We make use of data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research Anisio Teixiera (INEP), and the main results demonstrate that the structure of social inequality present in the country reflects negatively on national educational indicators. We also emphasise that the connection between social inequality and educational results seems to feedback on each other, creating a vicious circle, and as such we suggest that the Brazilian unequal social structures of the past continue and endure in the present, effecting education inequalities.