1 Introduction

This article aims to present research on training, for intercultural education, of educators from the early years of elementary school in a private school in the interior of the state of São Paulo. According to the new Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) [Common Core National Base] for elementary school, approved in 2017 (^{CANNETIERI; PARAHYBA; SANTOS, 2021}), schools must promote teaching in six major thematic areas, one of which is multiculturalism, which covers the themes of cultural diversity and education for the appreciation of the multiple Brazilian cultural and historical roots. Another important thematic area concerns Citizenship and Civics, in which there is the theme of the rights of children and adolescents. The development of the major thematic areas is mandatory and should take place in a transversal and integrative manner, unlike the previous Parâmetros Nacionais Curriculares (PCN) [National Curriculum Parameters] of 1997, in which it was optional. However, as there was no publication of specific booklets by the Ministry of Education for these two major thematic areas, the PCN guidance booklet on cultural diversity and sexual orientation (BRASIL, 1997) remains valid. In this booklet, there are recommendations that teachers receive training in anthropological concepts, in addition to that the intercultural theme should not be treated only as pedagogical content, but that teachers develop intercultural education in their daily school life, avoiding phenomena such as racism and discrimination of social groups.

The present study aims to contribute with reflections and analyzes on teacher training from the perspective of the concepts of intercultural education, as proposed by the BNCC as well as by the PCN. In this line, we consider that the promotion of intercultural education can lead to the construction of a culture of tolerance, although the current school routine shows that conflicts and discrimination are present. In this sense, this research seeks to offer contributions to the training of teachers for intercultural education, assuming some importance, given that little scientific research has been carried out in this area.

The research was conducted in a private school in a city in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with educators from the 4th year of elementary school. We justify the study having been carried out in this school primarily because this type of study is more numerous in public institutions, but rare in relation to private ones. Another reason for this choice was that the school's management, concerned with avoiding conflicts between students, from some years to now, stimulated the adoption of educational strategies aimed at achieving a culture of tolerance, such as restorative practices (^{SATO, 2022}), which can also be considered a modality of intercultural education, since, by providing attentive listening to students in conflicts, it allows understanding of the position of the other, awareness of what their act provokes in this and a negotiated solution between the parties. In this sense, ^{Soares (2020}) emphasizes the importance of a more integrated teacher training, which takes into account the real practice and the needs of educators, in order to ensure a more effective and applicable training in the educational context.

In this study, we investigated, at first, through semi-structured interviews, whether educators had basic anthropological concepts for intercultural education and developed practices in this regard. In the second moment, we observed ethnographically a formation of these teachers in anthropological concepts and development of the practice of intercultural education. In the third moment, we conducted a new round of semi-structured interviews to verify what remained of this formation.

We believe that anthropological concepts such as interculturality, intraculturality, multiculturality and transculturality, proposed by Aparicio Gervás and Delgado Burgos (2017), in the context of the development of an intercultural education in relation to the children of immigrants entering Spain, and by ^{Martins (2016}, 2019), in addition to the overculturality created by Martins (2016, 2019), in the context of the education of the indigenous peoples of Ceará, can help teachers to understand and practice the concept of intercultural education. The authors define intraculturality as self-recognition, which implies self-knowledge and self-acceptance on the part of the individual or the social group of their own culture, which gains forums of cultural rescue, in indigenous minority cultures that suffered from the disintegration of their own culture (^{MARTINS, 2016}, 2019). Multiculturalism means the recognition of the existence of individuals or social groups with a culture different from that of the subject or the collective, but which can derive from cultural fundamentalism and ethnocentrism, in which the intransigent defense of their own culture in relation to others is sought, which can generate serious community conflicts and phenomena such as acculturation and assimilation by dominant cultures compared to those of lower status, while they can go through the phenomenon of segregation and exclusion (^{APARICIO GERVÁS; DELGADO BURGOS, 2017}).

The concept of interculturality corresponds to “[...] A shared space of dialogue and communication that does not entail the supremacy of one culture over another or the coexistence of many cultures living in proximity, but isolated in subcultural ghettos”¹ (^{ESPINA-BARRIO, 2005}, p. 15, translated). It is on this conception of interculturality by Espina-Barrio (2005) that we base the notion of intercultural education, in the sense of developing an education that respects cultural differences among students, forming citizens who know their culture and are proud of it, without becoming obsessed with defending nationalist, ethnic and/or religious ideals, open to learning from others and their cultures (ESPINA-BARRIO, 2005).

The concept of transculturality, in turn, concerns ways of “[...] thinking and acting with oneself and with others” (^{MARTINS, 2019}, p. 72), forming a community in which the various cultural subjects, or cultural groups, interact thinking about the collective that encompasses them. Finally, the concept of overculturality (MARTINS, 2016, 2019) implies the condition of survival of subjects and cultural groups, which are, in the face of this cross-cultural scenario, subject to rights and duties.

Regarding the concept of intercultural education, ^{Fleuri (2002}) states that we must recognize that the interaction, in schools, between subjects and collectives of different cultural identities, can generate conflicts that educators must seek to overcome, deconstructing socio-cultural structures that generate discrimination, exclusion or subjection between social groups. ^{Candau (2009}, p. 170) states that intercultural education should not be reduced to some activities in specific moments of school daily life, but rather affect all school actors and all dimensions of the educational process, such as “[...] curricular selection, school organization, languages, didactic practices, extra-class activities, the role of the teacher, the relationship with the community, etc.”.

^{Candau (2011}) argues that there is a solid link between culture and the pedagogical process, that, in fact, the school is a vehicle for cultural transmission. Thus, it can be used in the sense of transmitting a teaching of intercultural characteristic, if properly organized for this. Candau (2020) recognizes, however, that the school has historically been a vehicle for cultural homogenization, at the service of the dominant, technological-scientific culture, arising from the hegemony of this paradigm, from Cartesian philosophy and Newtonian physics (^{GÓMEZ PELLÓN, 2010}).

Despite having to consider the whole of the educational process, we consider that there is a key player in the process of educational change, which is the teacher. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in its directives for Education for the 21st Century (^{DELORS et al., 2010}), points to the importance of the teacher in the process of school change, given that he is the social actor who lives most with students, stating that without him it is not possible, recommending, in turn, that education managers invest in teachers, both in the material sense as well as in the social and cultural. In this direction, we consider that the continuing education of this professional segment is very important for the construction of an intercultural education system, which can result in the construction of autonomous subjects, with self-esteem, not inferiorized or placed in a subordinate situation (^{CANDAU, 2020}).

^{Baztán (2008}) considers that anthropology initially studied almost totally isolated communities, but that this panorama, in the post-war, changed a lot, this science also aiming at urban segments. He argued that the cultural formation of the urban individual occurs both by his own choice of belonging to cultural groups, which he called self-affiliation, and by the determinations of others who attribute the individual's or group's belonging to certain cultural categories - hetero-affiliation -, both contributing to the individual's cultural affiliation. Regarding self-affiliation, he argues that individuals can develop complex cultural identity, due to their affiliation and sense of belonging to various groups, such as family, religious group, football club, nation, work, professional category, school, school class, group of friends, etc. Baztán (2008) states, however, that this identity feeling is dynamic, with possibilities of disaffiliation, new affiliations; decrease or increase in the intensity of the feeling of belonging to a certain group. Regarding hetero-affiliation, we think that, many times, it is not so simple to be undone, since it can be built from social stereotypes, such as racism, in the case of ethnicities, and those created by those who bully, in the case of students. In terms of the children who study, we consider that children, who find in school a cultural agency of the first magnitude, will receive this strong influence in terms of the constitution of their cultural identity.

The author argues that, in terms of organizational anthropology, “[...] Although we sometimes say that the organization has a culture, as when we claim 'we have a body’, the organization is a culture, just as each of us is our own body”² (BÁZTAN, 2008, p. 101, translated, emphasis added). From the thought of this author, we consider the school, the collective of teachers and the class group, which includes students and teachers, also as organizations and cultures, this study focusing on the group of teachers of a school year as a cultural organization, which is in interaction with school culture and student culture.

In this sense, ^{Costa (1988}) states that if a group of professionals who, from their self-recognition as a collective with certain social functions, develops a set of representations, values and norms about their own domain of professional activity and insertion of the scientific world, this referred set can be called professional culture. Within the scope of this study, we consider the concept of professional teaching culture.

^{Fartes and Santos (2011}, p. 380), exploring this concept, point out that the professional teaching culture is built collectively by teachers in a work context, in an intersubjective way, building meanings, influenced by “[...] asymmetric relationships of power existing between and within groups”. The authors also discuss that the concept of professional teaching culture emphasizes that the collective of teachers focuses its identity on relations with knowledge, through social practices, and reflection on the use of knowledge. In this line of thought, we can say that a continuing education can increase the possibility of reflection on the use of knowledge, leading to the change of identity of teachers as individuals and as a professional collective, transforming the group's teaching culture.

The pioneer of psychotherapy, Alfred ^{Adler (1967}), from the concept of social interest, central in his work, began to be interested in the issue of education, having been one of the first psychologists to participate in continuing education programs for teachers, as well as to teach at Austrian pedagogy colleges (^{LEAL; MASSINI, 2017}). A follower of socialist ideology, he also created, within the framework of a Vienna that, between 1922-1934, was governed by left-wing parties, the so-called “Vienna Roja” (GARCÍA, 2004), school counseling centers, in which volunteer psychiatrists advised teachers who indicated students with learning difficulties and their parents, so that they could overcome their difficulties, based on their concept of overcoming inferiority and developing social interest, contributing to the non-stigmatization of these students and their integration into the class group. From this intense performance, Adler had a lot of importance in the field of the development of Austrian education of the interwar period (LEAL; MASSINI, 2017).

His friend and disciple Rudolf Dreikurs (^{CAMP, 2022}) emigrated to the United States and continued the application of Adlerian theory to education. Based on the work of Adler and Dreikurs, Jane Nelsen developed the concept of Positive Discipline (^{SOARES et al., 2022}). This current of thought, according to ^{Lasala, Mcvittie and Smitha (2020}), constitutes a practice that develops in a context of mutual respect, in which teacher and student are equally worthy of respect and dignity, opposing the traditional pedagogy, in which obedience and conformism on the part of the student is due in relation to the adult, who is worthy of respect and can punish the former, if he feels that he has disrespected him. At this point, we can say that traditional pedagogy institutes a school culture in which the teacher has all the power, including to punish the student, and the latter owes almost unconditional obedience and respect to the teacher.

Although it does not use the term “intercultural education”, some of the objectives of positive discipline involve the issue of recognition and acceptance of the different. Relating the principles of positive discipline with those of the cultural identity of urban individuals in Báztan (2008), we can affirm that the first ends up seeking the formation of a more inclusive and inclusive cultural identity by educators and students. Thus, we can say that the tools and objectives of positive discipline can act to promote intercultural education and improve the relations of the teacher with the class group, which assumes a role not authoritarian, but democratic and cooperative, with the transformation of the cultural profile of the teacher.

Regarding the tools that positive discipline uses, we can list respectful, gentle and firm communication, when necessary, class meetings, socio-emotional dynamics, among others. Regarding class meetings, ^{Nelsen, Lott and Glenn (2017}) report a case of a public school in California in which there were numerous cases of school violence, vandalism and suspensions, but which, due to the effort of teachers, who worked to hold class meetings, managed to greatly reduce such occurrences.

2 Methodology

The study took place in a private school in the interior of the state of São Paulo. The research subjects are seven educators of elementary school, being an educational advisor and six teachers. All of them signed the free and informed consent form prepared by us. The research had three stages: the first and the last consisted of semi-structured interviews with six educators, aiming to understand anthropological knowledge and their ability to develop intercultural practices. The second was the ethnographic observation about a training in intercultural education practices and anthropological knowledge.

Regarding the validity of the semi-structured interview as an ethnographic tool, authors (^{DURHAM, 1986}) defend its use, especially when the researcher studies urban segments culturally close to him, including when it comes to educational ethnography (^{DAUSTER, 2004}). ^{Durham (1986}) states that, in the ethnography of isolated peoples, in which their language is totally different from the anthropologist, the anthropologist must seek the learning that, in order to be able to come into contact with the studied cultural universe. She argues, however, that this learning will never be perfect, so behavior observation will be a fundamental ethnographic tool. It infers that, in relation to urban language segments close to that of the anthropologist, verbal communication does not encounter barriers of understanding and the symbolic and cultural values of the interviewee can be transmitted in this way. ^{Dauster (2004}) states that interviews in ethnography of education can mirror dialogical situations and collect data regarding social and cultural situations and values of the interviewees.

Although ^{Dauster (2004}) uses the interview within its framework regarding the ethnography of education, within the same study it uses ethnography through participant observation and elaboration of field diaries. In this line, he approaches ^{André (2012}), who develops an ethnographic case study in which interviews and field observations are used in the school setting. The author places the peculiarities of this type of research, that is, that the study encompasses a well-defined system, “[...] as a person, a program, an institution or a social group” (^{ANDRÉ, 2012}, p. 37). In the case of our study, the main object is to understand the effects of a continuing education of teachers in intercultural education that occurred in a specific institution, for a limited period, with a closed group of educators. However, as the author argues, the case study can be related to its context, or to a larger whole, which, in a way, we also carried out in this study, by relating training to issues of national education, such as the need to implement intercultural education in Brazilian schools.

Ethnography in education (^{MERCER, 1998}) received recognition as a form of research of what occurs in the classroom from the 1960s. Currently, this is considered as one of the most important research methods in education, supplanting others, such as systematic observation, quantitative and positivist, and linguistic analysis, both lacking consideration of the social aspects of educational interaction, as they depend on the establishment of rigid linguistic categories from which they classify the verbal interactions that occurred, and then carry out the analyzes. Ethnography, which works through participant observation, seeking to fully record social life, without fragmentation, proved to be superior to other methods of classroom observation.

Justified in this way the procedures used in the research, we stated that the first phase of the interviews took place with six educators, in August 2021. The interviews, which were recorded, lasted about half an hour each. The ethnographic observations, through participant observation and preparation of a field diary, cover a period of five months, from August 2021 to March 2022, in which monthly teacher training meetings were held with the educational advisor, lasting two hours, of which six more teachers from the 4th year of elementary school participated. Finally, six educators were interviewed again, in March 2022, with recorded interviews that lasted about half an hour each. In total, there were ten hours of ethnographic observation, to which are added six hours of recorded interviews. Given the immensity of data collected, we will present them in a synthetic way and cut out in relation to the results of the interviews, the same happening in relation to ethnographic observation, so as not to exceed the limits of this article.

The data obtained through semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations were interpreted hermeneutically. Hermeneutics, according to the important philosopher Wilhelm ^{Dilthey (1900}) - who was the first to highlight the explanatory characteristic of the natural sciences, opposing it to the comprehensive nature of the human sciences - is the art or science of interpreting and understanding texts, initiated in Antiquity by the Greeks in the exegesis of the Iliad and Odyssey, being taken up by early Christians and then by reformists and counter reformists in relation to the analysis of the Bible. Modern hermeneutics, as the interpretive science of any text, was initiated by Schleiermacher (^{DILTHEY, 1900}) and developed by authors of the size of Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur (^{MANCILLA, 2022}).

^{Bardin (2016}), putting the development of content analysis, points out that it originates from three classical sources, that is, from hermeneutics, rhetoric and logic. Rereading ^{Dilthey (1900}), he points out that hermeneutics, since classical times, has been based on rhetoric and logic, which contradicts Bardin (2016), while bringing it closer to hermeneutics.

^{Geertz (2007}) puts his anthropological approach linked to hermeneutics, in the sense that it is basically interpretative. He puts his conception of man's relationship with culture: “I assume, like Max Weber, man as an animal entangled in a web of meanings that he himself wove, I assume culture, as this web of meanings and its analysis” (^{GEERTZ, 1968}, p. 4). He proposes to carry out a dense description, in which the modeled behaviors of the representative subjects of a culture “[...] can be read as a text, even if not totally linear, nor totally logical, in which ellipses, inconsistencies, suspicious amendments and biased comments [...] may be present [...]” (GEERTZ, 1968, p. 7).

Similar to what Geertz conceptualizes in relation to modeled behavior, ^{Bardin (2016}, p. 94) considers that the interviewee's speech in a semi-structured interview is neither linear nor totally logical, it contains “[...] ‘holes’, with incomprehensible digressions, denials, annoying, retreats, shortcuts, fleeting exits or misleading clarity”.

An author who also notes the proximity of Geertz and ^{Bardin's methods is Martins (2016}, 2019), who proposes the joining of the two methods of analysis in anthropological works. We also defend this point of view, since both have a similar origin - hermeneutics and the comprehensive approach, only applied to differentiated contexts, Geertz in relation to modeled behavior and Bardin in relation to the content of interviews. In this line of thought, we will use the dense description in the analysis of participant observation and content analysis, in relation to what was collected in the interviews.

^{Geertz (1968}) states that the ethnographer, when performing the dense description, notes the social discourse. We can say that, through the field journals or the record of interviews, it interprets the flow of social discourse. This annotated description fixes the social discourse of that moment, saving it from its disappearance, and enables further research (^{GEERTZ, 1968}).

^{Mattos (2011}, p. 54), applying Geertz's approach to the educational scenario, states that the objective of this is “[...] to obtain a dense description, as complete as possible, about what a particular group of people does and the meaning of the immediate perspectives they have of what they do [...]”. The author states that, within this perspective, what is perceived is interpreted by the ethnographer, comparatively to similar contexts, and there may be different levels of significance in relation to the material collected.

^{Bardin (2016}) states that the work of analyzing the contents of interviews has the ultimate objective of inferring the meanings of what was enunciated by the interviewees, after their analysis, interpreting these meanings from the theoretical framework of the researcher (^{SANTOS, 2012}).

Another methodological question to be considered is about the emic discourse - of the sender of the message - in this case, the population studied, and the ethic discourse - of the receiver of the message - in this case, the ethnographer. We consider the speeches and behaviors of the teachers studied as the emic discourse and our writing as the ethic discourse, including the interpretations made from the teachers' speeches and behaviors (^{GEERTZ, 2007}).

We also point out that this study is configured as an active anthropology (^{BAZTÁN, 2008}), in which there is an emic demand from the owners of the problem, in which there is an answer through an ethical diagnosis. ^{Geertz (1968}) and ^{Mattos (2011}) point out that the case study does not represent the solution of a given problem, but a solution given by a culture to this problem, which can serve as a reference for others to solve it. ^{André (2012}), in turn, states that the conclusions of a particular case study can be applied to a more general context.

3 Results and discussion

The semi-structured interviews conducted in the initial part of the research aimed to obtain data on the education and professional career of educators, as well as their anthropological and practical knowledge in relation to intercultural education, before the training offered by the school.

Regarding professional training, educator A reported having 30 years of training, graduating from the old teaching course and, later, with the requirement of university education, in the faculty of Pedagogy. Educator B said she had 27 years of professional practice and reported the same career steps as A. The advisor, educator C, has 17 years of university education; educator D, 14; educator E, two years. All completed postgraduate courses, four in the lato sensu modality, and educator C, in the stricto sensu modality - master's degree.

One of the questions asked in the interview concerns whether the educators had had any introduction to anthropological knowledge, at any level of training, and all, with the exception of educator E, said they had not. Educator E said that she had studied the discipline Methodology of Mathematics II in her undergraduate degree, in which she was introduced to the mathematics of non-European peoples, to ethnomathematics and to the teaching of mathematics to indigenous peoples. She reported that, in her internship, she had worked with the issue of each student having their own cultural background. In contrast to her, educator A mentioned that she remembered that, in her teaching course, held during the times of the military regime, she had attended the discipline Moral and Civic Education, of a nationalist and culturally assimilationist nature. The educator also reported that, during her undergraduate studies, the teacher-student relationship was authoritarian, the subjects were “thrown” by the teachers, closely resembling the banking education model of traditional pedagogy (^{FREIRE, 1983}). All the educators, with the exception of teacher E, said that they had not had at any time notions of education or intercultural curriculum.

Another important question of the interview is whether the educators had knowledge about concepts of intraculturality, multiculturalism, interculturality, transculturality and overculturality. The responses of the educators revealed that they had little knowledge about the concepts, an educator clearly assuming that she had no idea about them, and the responses of the other educators were either equivocal or tangent to the concepts in a very imprecise way. Considering that the concepts of intraculturality, transculturality and overculturality are very recent and little known, this ignorance would not be so strange; however, in relation to established concepts such as multiculturality and interculturality, the lack of knowledge about them shows ignorance of important concepts for intercultural educational practice.

Another question sought to understand whether educators practiced intercultural education. Two teachers answered that the theme of interculturality is present through transversal projects, while two others reported that their practice of intercultural education is present through work with conflicts among students, one reporting that this type of problem works through restorative practices and another through conflict mediation. Only one teacher said the school has a philosophy of mutual respect, but did not cite a practice specifically its own in terms of interculturality. We can interpret that two educators work on interculturality as a pedagogical content, which, in our view, is the most traditional way of working on the theme, while two manage to develop intercultural practices of intervention in conflicts with students, while one of the educators said she did not see herself developing practices of intercultural education. In general, we see that the theoretical knowledge about intercultural education and about anthropological knowledge that can support it is very small among educators, but that, on the other hand, in some way, most teachers manage to develop some kind of intercultural practice.

After conducting the interviews, the educational advisor underwent training in anthropological concepts and practices of intercultural education, through the procedures of the positive discipline, by a professional indicated by the school, which gave training to all educational advisors of elementary school. Formed in this way, she was willing to offer training to her teachers in five meetings. These followed a script to present anthropological and practical knowledge about intercultural education, in addition to socio-emotional dynamics taken from positive discipline practices. We chose from the dynamics that we consider the most significant for the formation of educators.

In the first meeting, we observed that the advisor proposed group dynamics to teachers, who reported to the group being called “respect for differences”, inspired by the practice proposed by the positive discipline (^{LASALA; MCVITTIE; SMITHA, 2020}). She had nailed pictures of four animals, eagle, chameleon, lion and turtle, to the wall of the room with posters. She asked each teacher to stand in front of the animal with which she identified the most. One teacher stood in front of the eagle; another, in front of the lion; two groups of two educators stood in front of the chameleon and the turtle. So the guidance counselor asked them to write down his name and why they chose him. In continuity, she asked those who chose the same animal to form a group and share the reason for their choice. After this step, she told the teachers in each group to share why I did not choose the other animals. Finally, she asked them to share with everyone what they had discussed in the groups.

The first group to speak out was that they had chosen the turtle. Its members said they wanted to be able to do one thing at a time, not have the routine they live today, that they wanted to slow down and seek quality of life. Then came the teacher who chose to be a lion; she said she had made this choice because she had watched the movie “The Lion King” as a child, identifying with him because he had a lot of hair. She said that before being king of the jungle, the lion is a skinny, injured animal that has to learn to survive and overcome life's challenges. Finally, she said, moved, that she felt the need to be part of a flock, to have the company of people, to belong to a group, that she liked the determined look of the lion and wanted to learn from this animal how to be more patient and then act. The third to introduce herself was the teacher who had chosen to be an eagle for a day; she verbalized that “The eagle flies high, sees everything and can see the sunrise and sunset”. Finally, the teachers who had chosen to be chameleons manifested themselves. They put that this lives the day to day, adapts and does what is necessary, being open to any situation or eventuality.

We noticed that most educators chose animals that are not socially valued and that have more defensive postures, such as the turtle and the chameleon, to the detriment of the eagle and the lion, with a more aggressive posture. We interpret that this choice was due to the difficult professional situation of teachers, who have their daily lives marked by many tasks and responsibilities, so part of the teachers externalized the desire to slow down, to be able to do one thing at a time and to have quality of life. The chameleon group emphasized the teacher's ability to adapt to any situation, an attitude that we can consider primarily defensive. We observed that even the teachers who had chosen to be lion or eagle did not emphasize the aggressive side of these animals, but rather the loneliness and learning of the lion and the ability to control the eagle.

Following the activity, the supervisor asked each group to explain why they did not choose other animals, which was done by the groups. The members of the turtle group verbalized that they did not want to be an eagle because they were afraid of heights and did not want to see everything; that chameleon is very camouflaged and that they want to be authentic; and that lion wants to be king and have power and authoritarianism, and this does not cheer them up. The educator who chose to be a lion said that chameleon adapts only to survive; that eagle is very lonely; that turtle hides out of fear and is very slow. The teacher who chose to be an eagle said that the chameleon is too small, it does not attract her attention; the lion would be too big for the city; the turtle is too slow and slow to solve things. The members of the group that chose the chameleon said that lion is king and that they do not feel good in this post, being very fierce; that eagle lives far from his cubs, is not afraid and has sharp claws; that turtle is very slow and quiet, and they are agitated.

We noticed that the teachers were divided in relation to the rejection of the characteristics of the animals mentioned, not identifying with the aggressiveness and power of the lion and the eagle - fleeing authoritarianism -, but, at the same time, also not identifying with the slowness and the fear of the chameleon and the tortoise. At this point in the dynamic, the advisor asked them what they understood about the notion of respect for differences. Four educators answered the question, all stating that, in the dynamic, it was interesting to see the difference of opinion between them, not having a correct one, and that it is important and enriching to live with the other, in which we understand that the professors approached a point from an intercultural point of view. The advisor asked them another question, about why respect for differences is important, to which five professors replied that the dynamics pointed to particularities of each colleague's view, but that this had awakened them to a feeling of empathy towards others and respect for their opinions, even if they differ.

After these reflections, the advisor presented a slide on the anthropological concepts of intraculturality, multiculturalism, interculturality, transculturality and overculturality, explaining them to the educators. After the explanation, all teachers reported that they had a misconception about them and that their understanding opened them to the possibility of becoming aware that they could be transforming agents in the classroom and at school, enabling children to facilitate the development of socio-emotional skills that allow them to relate better to children who are perceived as different, in terms of culture, ethnicity, physical appearance, gender, learning style, socioeconomic class, religion and differences in emotional temperament. The educators said that the dynamic allowed them to safely celebrate and share their own identities and that everyone was respectful in listening to their colleague, even in the case of the one who shared their life story. In this sense, we can say that this practice worked with the notion of intraculturality, at the same time as with the concept of interculturality, as there was respect for the positions of the other.

In the second meeting, the advisor proposed a new dynamic, which she called “significant ways to contribute: functions in the classroom”, also taken from the tools of positive discipline and which is part of the procedures related to the class meeting (^{NELSEN; LOTT; GLENN, 2017}). We observed that the advisor presented a framework in which she established three functions: scribes; guardian of the hours; readers. She said that anyone who felt comfortable could apply to help him with the tasks of that day. Four teachers volunteered to perform the duties. Next, the supervisor explained to them the performance of each function and questioned them how they felt when they were accepted for such responsibilities. Two educators answered the question, one saying that she had felt belonging to the environment and motivated to collaborate and another reporting that she had felt encouraged and happy to be able to help the counselor. After the conclusion of the dynamics, the advisor introduced the theme of the development of social-emotional skills of the student, contained in the guidelines of the new BNCC. She recognized the difficulty of this change, but also the possibility of encouraging the transformation of the student's thinking from something individualistic to community, towards the development of overculturality. We found here that, as learners in a training directed to them, the teachers organized themselves as a group-class, in order to feel belonging to this culture.

In the third meeting, the advisor began the training by asking the teachers to draw an iceberg and place, in the upper right corner, above the waterline, the behaviors of students they found challenging and, in the lower right corner, the motivations they perceived as their source. All of them listed problems, but they were also able to establish hypotheses as to why such behavior manifests itself, which showed a certain capacity for theorizing about everyday problems. The supervisor ended the meeting using the metaphor that, like the iceberg, the visible part, which would correspond to the manifest behaviors of the students, is only 10% of the piece of ice; while the non-visible part, which corresponds to 90% of the object, corresponds to beliefs or fantasies that generate the behavior. In this socio-emotional dynamic, but also of a reflective nature, we noticed that the collective of teachers was induced to point out the problematic behaviors of students, but also to think about the socio-emotional causes that generate them, in what we believe can improve the training of teachers, impacting their professional identities.

In the fourth meeting, the supervisor developed a new dynamic, in which she divided the teachers into pairs, with subjects A and B. The verbal commands of the supervisor were in relation to what she called three scenes: in the first scene of the dynamics, subject A would have to complain about something to subject B, for thirty seconds, and the latter would respond to A with a council, which would start with: “I believe you could [...]”. In the second scene of the dynamic, A would have to tell something to B, who would have to criticize A with a sentence beginning with: “I don't believe [...]”. In the third scene of the dynamics, A would have to tell something to B, who would have to validate the action of the first with: “It seems that you feel [...] because [...] and you would like [...]”. After the dramatizations, the advisor asked the groups to elect a representative of each group to report on the experiences of each collective. A teacher who played A said that, when it comes to advice and criticism, we usually think like this: “Ah! Whoever is out of the situation is easy to give advice. Criticism is the same thing!”. Regarding the validation of feelings, she expressed herself this way: “Wow! She's feeling what I'm feeling and even though she's out of the situation, she heard what I said”.

Then, the advisor invited one of the teachers who had represented B to bring the contributions to the group. This representative stated that she had thought of the three situations in one way. She said that when you advise, criticize or validate some action, you need to put yourself in the other's shoes, listen to what he is trying to say, listen more, ask to talk more about the action; when validating, also seek to know more about the situation. We noticed that, in this dynamic, role-playing occurred, in which teachers can sometimes dramatize their own professional role, sometimes the role of the student, then reporting to the group the feelings, thoughts and perceptions lived, which sensitized teachers about how their communications can affect the student, contributing to the professional training of the group.

The last meeting was aimed at teachers to present the experiences lived with students, based on the training they had. One teacher reported how much she was bothered by education based on punishment strategies and that she had decided to study approaches that offered alternatives to it, having found, on her own, the proposals of the positive discipline. She said she had started the conversation with his students. She mentioned that the first movement she made with them was the recognition of the positive things that each could perceive in the other, and everyone verbalized this to the group. She reported that he did the encouragement wheel every Friday, in which a child who felt in need of this attitude could sit in the center of the wheel, receiving phrases of encouragement from colleagues. She put that, in his classroom, there was a notebook in which the children wrote down what they wanted to solve in the class meeting. She reported that, with these practices, minor conflicts disappeared; students stopped accusing each other and started to solve small problems on their own. She observed that the recognition of the other for the group was significant for the change of the class relationship. Another point that was adopted, within the concept of positive discipline, according to her, was the corner of positive pause. She described that in this corner there were books and pillows, being a cozy place to calm and relax, and that she realized that when one of the students felt the need for this moment of pause and had it, she returned differently to class. Another tool used by the teacher, according to her report, was the function chart. From its adoption, it put that each one inside the classroom felt belonging to the group, contributed in some way so that the relations between all were guided by respect and tolerance.

We noticed that this teacher, even before the training received, did not identify with the role of punitive teacher, which made her study the positive discipline in search of non-authoritarian methods of conducting the class group, having sought the development of community feeling and inclusion of students who might feel not belonging to it, with the conversation circle, the encouragements, the corner of the positive pause. We point out that it also favored the community organization of students from the grievance notebook and the class meeting.

The second teacher reported that she had managed to have a gentle and firm attitude. She told of a situation in which a student had made a paper sword at home and had arrived at the euphoric school wanting to show it to the class. She pointed out, however, that she needed to start the class. She said that, at first, he had felt like taking the sword and throwing it in the trash. At that moment, we noticed that there was laughter on the part of the teachers who were present. However, she said that she had decided to use the strategy of firmness and kindness and addressed the student saying: “Alex [fictitious name], now I need to start class. Can you put your sword in your backpack and at the end of class we will open a space for you to come here in front of the room and explain to your colleagues how you built this sword?”. At that moment, she said she noticed that the student felt belonging and valued by her and the class group, which points out that she managed to assume a non-authoritarian stance towards the student, but constructive and inclusive towards him and the class group.

A third teacher reported that she had built a classroom map - a sketch establishing the places where students sit - but one of the students had not liked the place where she would sit, not conforming. The teacher said that she also had a problem, that she was worried because he could not concentrate, even staying in the place he wanted. Then, she described that she had decided to say that the exchange could be carried out, but that the student would need to seek a solution to the problem he presented of lack of attention and concentration. When she asked him to find a solution to the problem, he reflected and brought as a suggestion the commitment to improve his conduct. After a while, the teacher said she realized that the student had reached the agreement. We see here that the educator also managed not to take a simply punitive attitude towards the student, managing to maintain a firm and respectful dialogue, encouraging him, at the same time, to take a more responsible stance towards his studies.

The fourth teacher said that the students were in a challenging behavior after returning from the break. She said that, at first, she had started to lecture them, leaving for punitive solutions, but that, the next day, he had realized that the group had not changed. She reported that he had decided to talk to them, give them a voice, promoting active listening. The students were able to verbalize that they thought she did not like them and assumed that they were messing up a lot, which generated the change in the behavior of the class group. Again, we noticed that the teacher's attitude was initially authoritarian, but without resoluteness, and she later adopted a dialogical posture, which caused the class group to express its dissatisfactions, but also assume its responsibility before her.

The fifth teacher said that she was having problems with the students in relation to the organization of the physical space of the classroom. She said that he had proposed to talk to the students, asking them: “Shall we look at the floor? What did you notice?”. She brought up that the students had begun to observe the classroom environment and that their spontaneous reaction was to say, “Wow! What a dirty floor!”. She, through dialogue, said she had proposed to them that together they could seek a solution to the problem. He said he had asked, “What can we do to improve?”. She reported that the students had many ideas, such as making small plates, choosing a colleague to deliver the material, others to collaborate in the organization of tables, chairs and backpacks. With two weeks applying the tool “seeking solutions” and “creating functions within the classroom”, she realized that the students were cooperating, respecting the collective environment and feeling belonging to the class. For her, it was evident, even on warmer days, when they are usually more agitated, the improvement of the collective relationship. We note, in the case of this teacher, that she used the class meeting tool, seeking dialogue with the group, not using authoritarianism, but rather an invitation to group reflection, to stimulate the social interest of students and their feeling of solidarity.

The sixth teacher said that, within all the dynamics in which she had participated, the most striking had been that of the iceberg. She reported that looking at the student and knowing that there is much more than what we initially see - that she only perceived the challenging behaviors of the student and that she often did not understand their motivations - made her reflect on her educational practice. She said that there was a student who did not get along very well with their colleagues and that sometimes, because of frustrations, he was “difficult”. She said that he had decided to talk to him more, try to understand why he spoke and did some things. She mentioned that she sought the educational advisor to understand more about her case. She commented that, after some conversations and active listening, she had managed to make the student reach a quieter situation, his relationship with colleagues also improving. The most important thing, according to the teacher, was to perceive the change in herself, the most delicate and attentive look she had developed. We perceive here the change of the professional posture of the teacher, from a stigmatizing posture of the student to a more comprehensive and inclusive one.

A few weeks after the training ended, we resumed the interviews. The educational advisor and the five teachers who had participated in the first round of interviews participated in the interviews. On the question of the concepts of intraculturality, multiculturalism, interculturality, transculturality and overculturality, we asked which one had caught her attention, and educator C said that overculturality had caught her attention more, because it encompasses others, knowing how to explain these concepts in detail. The educator E also stated that overculturality had also attracted more attention, as it has the conception of an inclusive culture that brings together the different ones. Educators A and B placed transculturality as the most prominent concept, although the definitions they gave came closer to the concept of interculturality, while educator D also pointed to the concept, but without being able to name it.

4 Final considerations

From all the ethnographic material gathered, we come to some conclusions, from the comprehensive references of Geertz's dense description and Bardin's content analysis. We record and seek to understand the narratives and behaviors from the cultural universe of the participants - emic discourse -, at the same time that we analyze and interpret them from the references of anthropological science - ethic discourse.

The result of the investigation showed, as in a case study of a specific school group, continued training in intercultural training and anthropological concepts had repercussions on the professional culture of a group of teachers - the case study aimed at being an example - but not a model for schools or a group of teachers in a similar situation.

The first conclusion we reached is that, through interviews, at the beginning of the research, contrary to the recommendations of the PCNs of cultural plurality and sexual diversity, in this specific case, only one of five teachers had some introduction to anthropological knowledge or the concept of intercultural education. In terms of intercultural education practices, four teachers managed to develop some effort in this regard, either through transversal projects or practices related to interculturality that involve students, such as restorative practices. Through these results, we consider that ^{Gusmão's (1997}) statement that the fields of Anthropology and Education in Brazil, in historical terms, rarely knew any intersection, unlike countries like the United States, is quite true. We also noted the difficulty of introducing the discipline Anthropology of Education in higher education courses and undergraduate degrees, as reported by ^{Brum and Jesus (2018}), pointing to the difficulty of introducing anthropological concepts in the educational field, which may explain the lack of knowledge of the professionals interviewed in relation to this discipline.

The ethnographic observation of teacher education, in turn, pointed out that, through intercultural dynamics, they became involved, even emotionally, and their reactions pointed to a distance from an authoritarian position of the teacher and to the opening of respectful dialogue with students and the class group, to promote more cooperative, understanding and tolerant relationships between them and others, whether colleagues or educators.

As for the final result of the training, in theoretical terms, we can say that the teachers managed to improve their training in relation to the anthropological knowledge that sustains intercultural education, even if one of the teachers was unable to name the concept, but managed to talk about its dynamics. Regarding the training process of the educational advisor in anthropological concepts and practices of intercultural education, through positive discipline, the significant evolution in her knowledge and skills in this area was notorious, as she was able to conduct teacher training through meetings with mastery, allowing her to become a facilitator in the dissemination of this knowledge to elementary school teachers.

As for the practical results of the training, we can say that they were quite visible, because, in the last meeting, all the educators spontaneously pointed out that they were developing pedagogical practices that point in the direction of intercultural education. Three teachers brought class meeting practices in which problems were solved through the discussion of the teacher with the class group. Three educators, on the other hand, pointed to practices in which they had used, in specific cases of students, tools in the sense of a careful, comprehensive listening of these students, having managed to circumvent difficult situations without stigmatizing them. If the stigmatization of the student occurred, there could be a creation of a cultural identity of this by hetero-affiliation, which could then evolve to become a stereotype, that of the bad student or the messy one, compromising their future relationship with the teacher and with the class group. In this sense, although it is the teacher's relationship with a student, we can say that it is a modality of intercultural education, because the teacher opens up to the student's listening, leaving the polarized relationship between the teacher who holds power and the submissive student, while avoiding the stigmatization of the student in front of the class, allowing a better relationship with the collective of students, as well as favoring the integration of the teacher himself with his class.

In this sense, we can say that the collective of teachers, through continuing education, had a change in their culture, having moved towards an intercultural education, in the sense of respectful coexistence with the student, accepting their differences and seeking to include them in the class group. We also found that some teachers were able, through the tools of intercultural education, to democratically organize the class group, developing the social interest of students.