O negro e a educação em escolas luteranas no Rio Grande Do Sul: o jeito branco de ser negro

Abstract

This research work analyzes the educational paths of the Black community and the Lutheran German immigrants, particularly at the Lutheran schools in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Besides the bibliographic research, the author makes use of documents, particularly pictures of school classes, and of interviews with principals, teachers, employees, students and parents of two Lutheran schools - School A and School B - located in the Valley of the Sinos River. She especially analyzes the number of African-Brazilian students who have attended schools A and B since the decade of 1940 and the relationships that were established at these schools through the insertion of students of African descent, highlighting the educational path and identity construction in each one of these ethnic groups. From this perspective she discusses the factors that made it possible and those that made it difficult for both groups to have their contribution to the construction of the country and the exercise of their citizenship recognized. The research was able to identify various elements that support the following research hypothesis: the different educational paths of the Black population and the German immigrant population in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were determined by the material conditions under which both groups came to Brazil and by the opportunities to preserve and experience their cultural and religious references in the new context that were actually given to them. The discussion of the relationship between the educational situation of the Black immigrants in Brazil, more specifically in Rio Grande do Sul, and the educational path of the Lutheran German immigrants is accompanied by an analysis of the relationships that were established between the Black community and the German community in the construction of curricula at Lutheran community schools and of the challenge of retrieving the communal confessional praxis that was inspired by Lutheran theology and pedagogy.