Race relations in Brazil

The term race, over the centuries, has always been linked to the historical and social context, so that “the history of race or races is the history of the political and economic constitution of contemporary societies”¹ (^{Almeida, 2018}, p. 19, own translation). In this sense, considering the historical context of Brazil, colonization and slavery constitute essential dimensions to understand race relations. The first because it builds the colonialist vision, whose premises are based on the Eurocentric perspective that considers the white Portuguese (or European) man as a model, so that the “other” peoples (Indians and blacks, for example) would be the “different”, inferior. For ^{Ortegal (2018}) and ^{Guimarães (2016}), blacks and indigenous people were classified based on the vision of the European white man in a racialized way, as non-human. The second because, from the colonialist dimension, Portuguese put themselves as a superior “race”, enslaving blacks brought to Brazil.

This perspective gains strength in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century with scientific racism, in which, under the justification of rationality and universality, the idea of biological superiority between human races was propagated in order to justify the domination and exploitation of one race over the other, consolidating acts of the nations benefited by this stratification, notably the European countries (^{Barbosa, 2016}). According to ^{Schwarcz (2012}), scientific racism tried to justify, based on scientific arguments of the time, correlations between race, intellectuality, and morality, so that blacks were considered an inferior race.

After that, a fallacious ideology was built, based mainly on the studies of Gilberto Freyre, around the existence of harmonious racial coexistence in Brazil (^{Fernandes, 1972}), which ended up generating an idea that the country would be an example of racial harmony. However, in the 1950s, through research conducted by Florestan Fernandes, Roger Bastide and other researchers, funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), the idea of racial democracy was refuted, verifying that behind the glaring social inequalities between whites and blacks, the existence of racism predominated (^{Schwarcz, 2012}; ^{Maio, 1999}).

It is also worth pointing out that the notion of harmonious racial coexistence is instilled in the minds of a portion of the Brazilian population, contributing to the negation of racism, delaying the recognition of black identity and culture and hindering actions to promote ethnic-racial diversity through public policies (^{Theodoro, 2008}), perpetuating institutional racism.

Nevertheless, from the 1930s on, black movements were strengthened in an attempt to make the population aware of existing racism and fight for equal rights (^{Domingues, 2008}). Later, according to ^{Conceição (2018}), in the 1970s, there is a milestone in the struggle of the black population, when discussions guided by the sociological viewpoint gave strength to black movements that claimed corrective public policies for social injustices, rekindling the racial discussion also in the academic environment.

Despite the contributions of Brazilian sociology, from the 1950s on, regarding the studies on race relations in a critical way and in a tone of denunciation of the existing structure of racism in the country, combined with the processes of struggle and resistance of black movements around public policies to combat racial inequalities, the Brazilian State continued to deny racism. Even in later decades, during the military government, the emphasis was on denialism (^{Theodoro, 2008}).

It is worth mentioning the pioneering recognition, by Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s government, of the existence of racism in the country, from which time the implementation of anti-racist measures began to occur. According to ^{Paiva (2015}), in the 2000s, a relevant advance in democratizing access to higher education for the black population occurred through the quota system. Ten years later, Law No. 12,711 (2012) was sanctioned, which guaranteed the reservation of openings in federal universities and federal institutions of technical education at the high school level for self-declared black, brown, and indigenous people.

Amidst the advances achieved until the first decade of the 21st century, it is stressed that, especially since the 2018 presidential election, the denialist discourse of racism has gained strength in the country, and there has also been a weakening of policies to promote racial equality (^{Tommaselli, 2020}).

Thus, it is certain that there is a predominance of white literacy in the country and that the black population still needs the intensification of anti-racist measures for social, educational, and economic inclusion, as well as the implementation of measures to recognize the culture and identity of the black population, especially in the post-graduation sphere, so that the academy can contribute to overcoming the various nuances of the panorama of structural and institutional racism in the country.

The teaching of race relations

The construction of a true racial democracy in Brazil, based on the promotion of equal services, benefits, and opportunities for the different racial groups, will occur as the political debate and governmental agenda are dedicated to the elaboration of strategies and expansion of public policy programs aimed at racial equality (^{Jaccoud, 2018}). Considering that the State is primarily responsible for building the structure of racism in the country, which is also (re)produced by various institutions, it is equally responsible for improving the situation of the black population through public policies with a racial focus.

Currently, there are some initiatives, such as Law n. 10.639 (2003), which obliges the insertion of teaching about Afro-Brazilian History and Culture in private and public schools in the elementary and high school levels, modified by Law n. 11.645 (2008), which incorporated the teaching of indigenous history and culture. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning the CNE/CEB Opinion n. 3 (2004) and Resolution n. 1 (2004), which establish the mandatory insertion of the theme in higher education courses in all knowledge areas. In the scope of stricto sensu post-graduation, there is Resolution n. 7 (2017), issued by the Ministry of Education (MEC), whose provision states that master’s and doctorate courses should be oriented to the development of intellectual production committed to the advancement of knowledge and its interfaces with social inclusion and the well-being of society.

Despite the mandatory implementation of these laws, in the case of primary and higher education, or even the recommendations related to graduate studies, the literature shows that the insertion of the theme “race relations” in Brazilian education is still very timid and faces many barriers, according to some studies published in the last decade, systematized in Chart 1, below.

By systematizing some published works about the teaching/education of race relations, it is possible to notice the inexistence of studies focused on the post-graduation context and the public area. Even in basic or higher education, when it occurs, it happens in a secondary manner. For this reason, it is necessary to encourage more such research, and this study is considered relevant and pertinent.

Based on the premise that understanding reality transforms values, behaviors and leaves individuals better prepared for collective consciousness and articulation of resources in favor of social inclusion (^{Cavalcanti, 1981}), this study advocates the insertion of the theme “race relations” in the educational field, specifically in courses focused on the public area. Because courses in the Public field are part of a multidisciplinary academic community in the context of undergraduate and graduate studies focused on the public interest and collective welfare (^{Coelho et al., 2020}), it is believed that dealing with race relations in the practice of management contributes to the construction of a scenario of incentive to train students, researchers, masters, doctors and public servants and managers as real agents of change in social reality, since they will act in sectors that cover race relations, explicitly or implicitly.

Methodological procedures

The study had two methodological stages. For having required a certain level of measurement, in relation to frequencies and data organization, it is characterized as a descriptive quantitative research. Data collection was performed by documentary research, which addresses primary sources that have not yet received some kind of analytical treatment (^{Sá Silva et al., 2009}).

To this end, an initial search was conducted in the Sucupira Platform of the federal government’s Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), specifically in the “program registration data” section. The terms searched, individually, in the field “programs” of the Platform were “Public Administration”, “Public Management”, “Public Policies” and “Social Management”, which, through the filter “in operation”, brought the result of 84 programs in activity, considering professionals and academics. These terms were selected with reference to the so-called Publics Field, a nomenclature coined by the National Education Council in 2010 and institutionalized mainly in the second half of the decade, with the development of events and scientific research of its own, covering the courses of Public Administration, Public Management, Social Management, Public Policy and Public Policy Management (^{Coelho et al., 2020}).

After the identification of all programs previously listed by the Sucupira Platform, we proceeded to access the websites of each IES and to check their internal virtual pages dedicated to their respective post-graduation program(s) in the areas of research interest. With this, we started a search for the most recent curricular structures of the courses and, after that, for the inventories of each discipline offered by them. Those curricular matrices and menus that were not found or were not publicly available in the institutions’ websites were requested via e-mail or through the institutional contact page. Of the 84 graduate programs in operation, two were not found and only 36 had the necessary information on their virtual pages, which required contact with the 46 remaining graduate programs, through their secretariats or coordinations, via e-mail or institutional contact page. Of the 46 contacted, 20 responded, one of them informing that the course indicated on the Platform did not exist. Thus, the sample was expanded to 55 graduate programs.

Units of analysis were used to categorize the teaching of race relations according to direct and indirect approach. For this purpose, some terms were previously determined as a direct approach to the racial theme, namely: “race relations”, “racism”, “race”, “blacks”, “indigenous people”, “racial prejudice”, “racial discrimination”, “racial inequality”, “racial equality”, and “racial diversity”, and others were identified during data collection and analysis, such as: “native peoples”, “ethnic intolerance”, “racialized thought”, “African Diaspora”, “quilombolas”, among others. Regarding the indirect approach, the predetermined terms were: “minorities”, “social inequalities”, “Brazilian colonization”, “Brazilian culture”, “affirmative actions” and “quotas”, and no other terms were inserted during data collection.

In addition to the terms present in the menus, the other information obtained about each of the graduate programs were arranged in a spreadsheet, where it was possible to highlight data regarding the category of HEIs (public or private); the states where they are located; the level of the course offered (master’s or doctorate); the type of graduate program (academic or professional) and area of concentration of Capes; and finally, the types of disciplines that make direct or indirect mention to race relations (compulsory, elective, optional, etc.). Next, inferences and interpretations of the data obtained based on this analysis will be made.

Results and discussions

A priori, the presentation of data will count with the total sample, considering the graduate programs (PPGs) that address the racial theme directly or indirectly in some discipline(s), and also those that do not address it, which allows the survey of certain characteristics and important interpretations, besides facilitating the visualization of the reader. Next, the sample will be cut and the analyses will focus on the PPGs that present direct or indirect references to racial issues, according to the Capes Area, modality (professional or academic), academic level (master’s degree, doctorate or both), category (public or private) and distribution of each one in the national territory. Finally, the characteristics of the disciplines and their direct and indirect terms will be addressed.

Aspects of the disciplines related to race relations

Finally, the analysis starts for the disciplines of the 28 PPGs that address race relations directly or indirectly. The total of disciplines was 56, in which 31 (55.35%) make indirect reference and the other 25 (44.64%) mention terms directly related to the study of racial issues in their menus. This total is divided into compulsory and elective/optative courses, as listed below:

Despite the fact that part of the websites of the researched PPGs do not inform whether their courses are mandatory or elective/optative in their curricular dynamics, as presented in Table 6, during data collection it was possible to note the prevalence of elective or optional courses within the total number of courses mentioned above, and, consequently, the tendency of the non-mandatory curricular nature of courses that make direct reference to racial discussion. In quantitative terms, of the 25 courses found, only six are mandatory, which allows us to infer that in order to take a course that directly addresses the racial theme, in most PPGs of the public area, the student must have prior personal interest in the debate, being considered a theme with only complementary importance for the professional training of the student.

Still in relation to the compulsory nature of the disciplines that directly mention terms linked to the racial theme, some programs stand out, such as the PPG in Social Development and Management at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), which, in the discipline “Culture and Identities”, debates ethnicity as an integral part of the formation of Brazilian cultural identity; the PPG in Public Management and Society, at the Federal University of Alfenas (Unifal), which, in the discipline “Racial Relations”, goes through the racial theme since the colonization of Brazil, going through the formation of Brazilian society until the construction of the category race, racism and racial inequality, as well as affirmative actions for its confrontation; The PPG in Human Rights, Citizenship and Public Policies, of the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB), which, in the courses “Theory and History of Human Rights and Democracy in Latin America” and “Territories, Human Rights and Sociocultural Diversities I”, approaches the identity and organizational characteristics of native peoples and ethnic intolerance in Latin America.

Finally, the PPG in Public Policies in Human Rights at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), which, in the courses “Studies of Inequality and Citizenship” and “State, Politics and Theory of Human Rights”, debates the category of race and its inequalities in Latin America, besides offering elective courses that deal with black feminism, It is the PPG in the public area that offers the largest number of mandatory and optional/elective courses that offer content directly related to the racial issue in their curricula, according to the search criteria used in the research.

Moving on to the analysis of the briefs themselves, it is important to mention that the total number of terms found exceeds the total number of briefs that directly or indirectly address the racial theme, since some briefs contain more than one of the direct or indirect terms previously determined. Unlike what occurs with the indirect terms, in which no new terms were added during the analysis, new direct expressions were added to the previously established ones. Since there was a significant number of new terms added (30), in order to facilitate the visualization and quantification of these terms, we chose to separate them into categories according to their similarities and semantic and synonymy relations.

It is noteworthy that terms related to the same category can be mentioned more than once in a single argument, so in most opportunities, the quantity in which the expressions appear is greater than the number of arguments linked to each category.

Regarding indirect terms, the number of disciplines that discuss issues related to “inequality” and “social inequality” stands out, repeating in 23 of the 31 menus with indirect terms. “Minorities” and “minority groups” are also cited, but less frequently. The other terms are mentioned only a few times: “affirmative action policies”, “social exclusion”, “colonial period or origin”, and “Brazilian culture”. It is understood that such terminologies may be associated with the racial debate due to the characteristics that underlie the process of construction and the characteristics of Brazilian society.

With regard to direct terms, considering the vastness of expressions found and in order to make it possible to present all direct terms found in the menus in an illustrative manner, a “word cloud” was used, a resource that lists terms hierarchically, according to the weight of each word. In the following case, the weight used was the frequency in which these terms were cited in the research sample, i.e., the larger the source, the greater the frequency in the menus.

Source: Prepared by the authors based on survey data.

FIGURE 1 DIRECT TERMS FROM THE SUBJECT MENUS 

The direct terms presented demonstrate the multiple approaches that the racial debate can have in the Brazilian academic environment, going through constructions that are related to the category race, racism, ethnicity, slavery, indigenous people, blacks, and migrants, often running into other important categories such as the social issue and the gender issue.

Final considerations

The results of this research point to the neglect or the secondary character of the category race in the description of the menus of the disciplines of most of the PPGs in the sample. As no research was found on the teaching of race relations in graduate studies and, especially, in the public area, it is important to compare the findings of this research with the literature related to the context of basic and higher education, already presented here. In this sense, the main result meets the findings of the research of ^{Camargo and Benite (2019}), ^{Silva (2018}), ^{Muller (2018}) and ^{Santana et al. (2019}). It cannot be denied that only the fact that the space for discussion about racial issues is expanding already shows important advances, as Silva (2018) pointed out, however, it is believed that this debate cannot be secondary, and should be part of the curriculum dynamics as a mandatory component. Evidently, there are barriers such as those pointed out by several authors, related to the Eurocentric perspective in education systems (^{Araújo, 2018}; ^{Chagas, 2017}; ^{Coelho & Coelho, 2018}), fragmentation and difficulty in adopting an antiracist education from a collective and institutional point of view (^{Fonseca & Rocha, 2019}) and less dependent on individual initiatives (^{Meinerz, 2017}).

It was possible to verify that the PPGs most committed to the teaching of race relations are those focused on Public Policy and Human Rights. It is assumed that this is related to the fact that antiracist and affirmative actions in Brazil are more circumscribed to the context of public policies for the promotion of racial equality, which is why these PPGs seek to study them.

The findings show that most of the PPGs linked to the Capes Public Administration area were the least committed to the racial agenda, which highlights the need for changes in the curricular dynamics of these programs, which are often linked to more technical and normative procedures of the public machine and ignore social and cultural aspects.

Such absence of the insertion of the theme in the PPGs of the public area allows us to infer that racism and racial inequality are not understood as such an important social problem, nor as a problem that should be researched, debated, problematized by teachers and researchers, and mitigated by managers and professionals in the public area. In light of ^{Almeida (2018}), these spaces of power - in which the university and PPGs fit - are still instances of (re)production of structural racism and continue to replicate norms and behaviors of institutional racism, which implies a naturalization of the minimization or even elimination of the debate on racism and racial inequalities in institutions.

Thus, the engagement of graduate programs in the public area with the theme “race relations”, through the promotion and encouragement of disciplines, research and events related to the subject may broaden the debate and highlight the history and black culture, as well as racism and racial inequalities and ways to combat them in the public area. This can contribute so that, progressively, anti-racist practices are absorbed in the daily life of public organizations, by training more aware researchers, teachers, managers and public administrators. Such measures, by themselves, are not capable of solving all the above- mentioned demand, nor are they able to cure the ills consolidated by centuries of inequalities and marginalization of the black population, but they are a viable, important and necessary initiative.

Finally, among the main adversities experienced during the research process, we highlight the difficult access to the disciplinary menus of the PPGs, especially those linked to private universities, which made it impossible to expand the sample analyzed. It is also noteworthy that the study did not intend to exhaust the theme, but to contribute to the production of knowledge on the subject and to stimulate similar future research that aggregates other approaches, such as, for example, the disciplinary bibliographies, or even other research strategies that encompass other databases, or even other fields of research of the Sucupira Platform itself, in addition to the possibility of replication of this study to other areas of knowledge.