Overview of the mapping of research on indigenous school education

The data from our mapping provides an overview of the studies, from study location, researchers’ ethnicity, and the methodology used, to the research scopes considered. The number of works developed reveals a significant increase in interest in indigenous school education.

This production is linked to the historical process experienced by indigenous peoples. With much struggle and resistance, the return of democracy fostered the recognition of different indigenous peoples and different ethnic groups. The right to traditionally occupied land, the use of the mother tongue, and their own learning processes have become legal conditions supported by the 1988 Constitution.

The right to their own learning processes was supported by the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (Lei n. 9.394, 1996), and in addition to this legislation, other specific policies that regulated and guided differentiated, specific, intercultural, and bilingual/multilingual education were progressively built. This new paradigm has raised new concerns about the construction of the indigenous school aligned with the principles defended by indigenous peoples, and how these schools have been implemented in the villages.

The new school also involved different ways of organizing pedagogical work, teacher training, and the construction of a curriculum that met the schools’ specificities and daily life. Along with the construction of the indigenous school legally recognized as differentiated, the movement of investigations around indigenous school education gained greater visibility in higher education institutions (HEI), as an object of research in several fields beyond education.

Thus, from the 1990s onward, reflections on indigenous school education have gained space as a theme and study question. Dissertations such as those by Darlene ^{Taukane (1996}), Clélia Neri ^{Côrtes (1996}), and Iara Tatiana ^{Bonin (1999}) are among the 11 productions of the 1990s. These studies investigated the relationship between school education and the cultural traditions of particular peoples, as well as the relationship between school and community, curriculum, and teacher education.

A new level of reflection on the indigenous school began as an object of study, but significant growth only occurred after 2010. We infer that this is because the increase in specific policies for indigenous school education and the recognition of the ethnic groups of other peoples that occurred after 2000 stimulated research on indigenous school education as a modality of education and, mainly, as a political strategy of ethnic reaffirmation.

Under the legal framework, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Indigenous School Education in Basic Education (DCNEEI), of 2012 (Resolução n. 5, 2012), and the National Curri- culum Guidelines for Indigenous Teacher Education (DCNFPI), of 2015 (Resolução CNE/CP n. 1, 2015), are examples of policies that contributed to the research effort after 2010. From 1996 to 2010, 94 studies were produced, while from 2010 to 2020, 267 were produced, a growth of approximately 185%, considering the two periods.

By observing all the research that was found, we note that the investigations were carried out in 73 higher education institutions. As shown in Figure 1, the region with the highest number of institutions where research was based was the Southeast (26), followed by the South (17).

Source: Authors’ elaboration with data from the research.

Figure 1 Number of HEI by regions that developed research on indigenous school education 

Regarding the number of studies by region, as shown in Figure 2, the organization of data identified the following figures: Southeast region, 112 studies; Central-West, 92; South, 73; Northeast, 43; and North, 41. This shows that the Southeast region has the largest number of institutions where investigations are based and also the largest number of completed studies.

Source: Authors’ elaboration with data from the research.

Figure 2 Representation of research on indigenous school education by regions 

In the listing of productions by HEI, the institutions that produced the most research on indigenous school education in the field of education were identified. The Universidade Católica Dom Bosco (UCDB), located in Mato Grosso do Sul, stands out with 33 dissertations and 9 theses, followed by the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT) in Mato Grosso, with 24 dissertations. In its Graduate Program in Education, the UCDB has a line of research titled “Cultural Diversity and Indigenous Education,”² in which cultural diversity is studied as an epistemological dimension, with regard to the reality of the indigenous communities from the state with the second-largest number of indigenous people, as well as the Afro-descendant communities and other realities marked by plurality, popular education, and social movements.

Methodologically, most of the research, 308 studies out of a total of 361, used a combination of instruments for data collection. One example is ^{Rezende’s (2007}) investigation on the Tuyuka people, which conducted a literature review and interviews with students, teachers, and parents, as well as ^{Neves’s (2005}, p. 7, own translation) study, which used documentary analysis and participant observation to understand the “role of didactic resources in didactics textbooks in the daily life of an indigenous school.”

More specifically, the most mentioned methodologies were: literature review (75), ethnography (63), and documentary research (142). As for data collection strategies, 51 studies had narrative characteristics, 106 conducted interviews, 30 used observations, and 6 did not specify the instrument used in the abstract. Other methodological references included oral sources, sensitive listening, dialogue, talk circles, testimonials, and photographs.

Regarding the origin of researchers, we sought to understand how many were indigenous. To learn this important aspect, we organized the ethnic profile data by gathering information from the abstracts, researchers’ personal data on the Lattes platform, and the papers’ presentation/introduction.

When the information was not found in the abstract or Lattes curriculum, we read the work’s introduction. We classified authors as ‘indigenous’ if they self-identified and mentioned their people; ‘non-indigenous’ if they did not or used expressions like “my contact with indige- nous peoples,” “when I was introduced to indigenous peoples,” or “the first time I had contact with indigenous peoples,” indicating that they were not from any indigenous group; and “no information” for works without relevant information or the possibility of inference. There were also cases of “research not located,” where no information was found either in the abstracts or by reading the full introductions in the Capes catalog, in the Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações (BDTD), or in the virtual repository of libraries of the respective universities.

As can be seen in Table 1, the results of this search show that, of the 361 selected studies, only 57 researchers self-identified as indigenous.

Of the 57 indigenous researchers in the field of education, only 6 are PhD students; the other 51 are master’s students.

These data demonstrate the small presence of indigenous researchers. Regarding their ethnicity, 28 peoples were represented, namely:

It is worth noting that researchers’ self-identification as indigenous before 2010 is much lower than that for the subsequent decade. From 1996 to 2010, only 10 researchers self-identified as indigenous; from 2010 to 2020, 47 did so.

We infer that a possible explanation for this is the increased visibility and achievements of the indigenous movement, as well as the growth of dedicated policies for the recognition of these peoples. As pointed out by Manoel Fernandes Moura, a spiritual leader of the Tukano people, in an interview with Daniel ^{Munduruku (2012}, p. 150, own translation):

. . . in 1987 and until the date of promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, Funai had recorded only 180 ethnic groups. After the promulgation, 50 more ethnicities appeared. . . . many say that their grandfather was an Indian and they no longer are, rejecting their ancestors.

It was found that while some texts had no actual self-identification by the researcher, the text allows inferences, as exemplified in the excerpt below from the research by Rogério ^{Ferreira (2005}), Educação escolar indígena e etnomatemática: a pluralidade de um encontro na tragédia pós-moderna [Indigenous and ethnomathematical school education: The plurality of a meeting in post-modern tragedy]:

My descendancy from the Guató people, through a paternal great-grandmother who lived on the banks of the Paraguay River in southern Pantanal of Mato Grosso, has always kept indigenous matters close to the heart and foundations of my family history; despite the typical urban life of the current generation of descendants. The personal interest that has long ruled my being in the context of indigenous diversity is grounded in this and substantially constitutes the primary source of motivation for these writings that aspire to be a thesis. (^{Ferreira, 2005}, p. 9, own translation).

Or the research by Gérson Alves da ^{Silva Júnior (2008}), who writes in his dissertation introduction:

For a long time, it was clear to me that those who preceded me were an “uneducated people from the woods,” as my grandparents put it. My grandmother used to talk of how her ancestors were “caught by dog’s teeth,” but for some reason, we understood that we were not indians. This notion came from the fact that we were Brazilians, baptized Christians, and that we neither lived in the woods nor spoke a strange language. . . . Well, if I was imaginary or not, I don’t know. But the truth is that I was Brazilian, that is what they taught me, and being an Indian meant being a very different and distant thing. In reality, it meant being a wild creature. (^{Silva, 2008}, pp. 11-12, own translation).

Many barriers have been crossed so that indigenous researchers could self-identify as indigenous in a country so discriminatory and prejudiced against its native peoples. In the words of ^{Munduruku (2012}, p. 211, own translation):

Everything was arranged from the official perspective - so that indigenous peoples would cease to exist as autonomous entities. The official orchestration was such that in just a few years, Brazil became a unified nation, where its inhabitants were simply Brazilians, and ethnic diversity was suppressed. If everything went according to what the military government theorists thought, national unity would be guaranteed and Brazil would become a developed country, free from the presence of its “primitive” inhabitants.

Thus, silencing was also a form of resistance and survival, given the circumstances that they faced during historical periods of erasure of indigenous populations. Being recognized as differentiated peoples and securing policies, including affirmative actions for more indigenous people to enter higher education institutions, contribute to self-recognition as peoples.

Many of these researchers have self-identified as militants, contributing to building recognition and producing knowledge. Francisca Navantino Pinto de Ângelo, of the Paresi people, for example, says: “As an indigenous representative in different institutional parts of government and a militant for school education, I have been following indigenous peoples’ struggle to consolidate the rights provided for in legislation” (Ângelo, 2005, p. 20, own translation).

In this respect, it is worth noting that, for the most part, indigenous researchers who study indigenous school education are teachers in their own communities. As militants and responsible for creating the new indigenous school, they lay the foundations for dedicated policies to be created and implemented locally. Such is the case of Geraldo Veloso ^{Ferreira (2007}, p. 14, own translation), an indigenous man from the Tukano people, who says:

Faced with the challenges of my work as an indigenous teacher and monitoring indigenous education issues in Iauretê, I found it necessary to gain a deeper understanding of education and to design curricula that address the specific needs of indigenous school education in Sao Miguel-Iauretê, by understanding the local reality.

Regarding non-indigenous people who conduct research on indigenous school education in the field of education, they generally have similar profiles: They are either indigenists working for non-governmental organizations or public servants from municipal, state, and federal bodies (education departments, school management, university faculty, etc.) who are somehow involved with indigenous school education and felt a need for research in the area. An example of this is the study by Silvia Maria de ^{Oliveira (1999}), who worked for the Indigenous Education Commission in the state of Rio Grande do Sul:

The decision to conduct this study was linked to the work I have been involved with - to different degrees - in the last ten years. As part of the Executive Committee of the Permanent Seminar on Popular Education (SPEP), of the Foundation for Integration, Development, and Education of the State’s Northwest (FIDENE, which houses, among other institutions, the Universidade Regional do Noroeste do Rio Grande do Sul - UNIJUÍ), I was called in 1989 to assist in the discussions of the Committee on Indigenous Education, coordinated by the Rio Grande do Sul State Education Department and which later became the Center for Indigenous Education (NEI/RS). (^{Oliveira, 1999}, p. 11, own translation).

Another example of this non-indigenous profile is the research by Suelise de Paula Borges ^{Ferreira (2006}), who worked as a teacher trainer:

At the end of 1993, I started working with the Catholic Education Association of Mato Grosso do Sul (AEC/MS) in the “Training and Qualification Program for Teachers of Grades 1-4 for the Indigenous Context”. There I worked with indigenous teachers of the Terena, Kadwéu, and Guató ethnicities, which exposed me to a huge professional challenge, built by anguish from contact, leading me to reflect on my own practice. (^{Ferreira, 2006}, p. 14, own translation).

Due to the limitations in access to all selected studies, we were not able to discover whether both the studies not located and those whose introduction lacked clear information on their authors being indigenous or not had been conducted by indigenous authors. The fact is that the search results indicate the need for more indigenous researchers investigating the school education of their peoples or relatives.

The number of indigenous researchers in the field of education when compared to non-indigenous researchers is much lower, and even more so are the numbers for the representation of researchers by indigenous peoples - only 28 peoples represented by the researchers belonging to the respective communities, of a total of 305 indigenous peoples in Brazil.

Research on indigenous school education: Investigation theme groups

In 2013, Luciano Baniwa emphasized in his book Educação para manejo do mundo: Entre a escola ideal e a escola real no Alto Rio Negro [Education for world management: Between the ideal school and the real school in Alto Rio Negro] that research on indigenous school education was key to consolidating actions and policies suited to the new political and educational context of reaffirming indigenous peoples’ rights. In the period analyzed by Luciano Baniwa (2013), in addition to indigenous school education, the studies focused on contact with Brazilian society, cosmologies, kinship, rituals, corporality, and social organization.

Ten years after ^{Luciano Baniwa’s analysis (2013}), research on indigenous peoples’ school education extents to other objects of study. A range of topics dealing with the implementation of schools in villages, pedagogical organization, and schools’ daily life and pedagogical practices.

Starting with the collected data, we classify the studies based on their research objectives by analyzing the investigated themes, which we organize by proximity into thematic groups. We mapped 11 groups: (1) pedagogical practices in indigenous schools; (2) structuring and challenges of indigenous schools; (3) literacy, oral culture, and written culture; (4) building argumentative historical consciousness; (5) children, childhoods, and early childhood education; (6) identity and culture; (7) cross-cutting themes; (8) special education and vocational education; (9) indigenous school education and curriculum components; (10) indigenous school education and principles; and (11) legal aspects and political organization. As shown in Table 2, the groups are formed based on the subthemes’ proximity, and they vary in the number of works they contain, with “indigenous school education and principles” containing the most studies (87), followed by “legal aspects and political organization” (76 studies) and “structuring and challenges of indigenous schools” (53). The remaining eight groups together total 145 studies.

Based on the understanding that indigenous school education, unlike school “for indians,” has different principles and characteristics; the new school paradigm within villages is based on school as the center of the movement in the community and needs to dialogue with the particularities of each people. In this sense, the group “indigenous school education and principles,” with 20 theses and 67 dissertations, stands out for covering a range of studies on the principles of indigenous school.

Understanding this involvement of indigenous education principles in the construction of this school seemed so urgent among indigenous and indigenist researchers that it stood out in research carried out as early as the 1990s, with 7 of the 11 studies mapped. In addition to the princi- ples of community education, specific education, differentiated education, and interculturality, the subthemes in the same group include discussions on bilingualism from a sociological perspective and epistemology of indigenous school education.

As an example, ^{Leitao’s (1998}, p. 218, own translation) dissertation presents the debate on bilingualism, observing that “while they emphasized the importance of mastering Portuguese through school, some mothers mentioned that Karajá writing can contributes to the continuity of their mother tongue”.

The studies dealing with the principles of indigenous school education, pedagogical work, and legal aspects are related with the good expectations of the indigenous community about the presence of schools in the villages, but also with the anguish of their leaders in an effort to train people according to their principles, without discrediting the intercultural dialogue, but exercising their rights as Brazilian citizens after specific policy has been achieved. This is something the indigenous researchers themselves desire, but which also transcends their village borders, generating interest by other researchers.

It is worth noting that the political time of new paradigms, after the enactment of the 1988 Federal Constitution, fostered new research on indigenous school education. The figures in the study by ^{Grupioni (2008}) show 116 dissertations and 40 theses on indigenous education, written between 1978 and 2007; compared with today’s figures, these represent significant results that seem to align with the period of changes arising from the achievements of the 1990s. This political movement seems to have contributed to academic production, where we can see a variety of themes involving policies for indigenous peoples, including specific educational policies.

However, according to ^{Medeiros (2018}), investigations are still incipient. The studies by ^{Souza (2014}) and ^{Maroldi (2017}) reveal gaps, showing that few studies address indigenous school practice today.

Something that draws our attention is the need shown by various works for better delimitation of indigenous school education. As ^{Ferreira (2020}, p. 149, own translation) points out in his thesis entitled Ũn si ag tũ pẽ ki vẽnh kajrãnrãn fã: O papel da escola nas comunidades kaingang (Ũn si ag tũ pẽ ki vẽnh kajrãnrãn fã the role of school in Kaingang communities), while we have had achievements in the right to differentiated school education, “it is important to deepen further the reflections about the school we have and the school we want”. This idea is complemented by ^{Ramos (2019}) when he says that this deepening should be mainly regarding autonomy, since the system administration does not address community-specific needs.

This movement can be fostered precisely by the actions of indigenous researchers, usually committed to the struggles of their peoples. Both investigative and political efforts can mobilize this necessary process.

The organization of teachers has influenced the construction of scientific knowledge and the creation of policies as they entered universities and became researchers (^{Freitas, 2005}, p. 7). One example of this is the important work of the Committee of Indigenous Teachers of Amazonas and Roraima (later expanded to include the state of Acre), which collaborated in establishing in 1991 the principles of differentiation, interculturality, bilingualism/plurilingualism and specificity in the Curriculum Reference for Indigenous School Education, in 1998.

Thus, it is essential for the movement that indigenous teachers are preferably from the community, as already established in the DCNEEI (Resolução n. 5, 2012, p. 4). This requires belonging to the indigenous community and a school trajectory that qualifies them for this role.

The training allows them to teach in schools, enabling dialogue between indigenous community perspectives and the policies outlined in response to the indigenous movement. However, given the difficulty in accessing undergraduate and graduate courses, few teachers obtain higher education and continue their studies, as demonstrated earlier when we compared the number of indigenous researchers with that of non-indigenous researchers.

Final considerations

Indigenous school education, sought by indigenous people in movement and guaranteed by the current Federal Constitution (Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil, 1988), represents only the beginning of the struggle for an education based on principles defended by indigenous peoples. Studies on indigenous school education are growing compared with three decades ago, but are still nascent in relation to other research topics in the field of education.

The studies on the principles of indigenous school education presented here in the context of graduate programs in Education show the shift from a ‘school for Indians’ (before the 1988 CF) to indigenous schools with community, intercultural, specific, and differentiated characteristics, describing the changes in implementing the new school in villages, community participation, pedagogical work organization, and other specific changes that vary according to each people’s particularities. These changes continue to confront the foundations of the old school for indians in the effort to build today’s indigenous school.

As explained, the study’s results show that the urgency to establish the indigenous school with principles defended by the organization of indigenous peoples stands out among the subthemes, based on the investigations into current indigenous school education, after their recognition as distinct peoples with rights by the Brazilian Constitution. It is imperative that researchers committed to the indigenous cause, from the villages, reveal the forms adopted for indigenous school education and the needs and aspirations of the communities.

Our mapping of research on indigenous school education reflects how we still have much to achieve in the institutional organization of this educational modality. And the guarantee of principles as a horizon becomes just the beginning of a long path that must be firmly established, a path that requires engaged teachers and purpose-designed pedagogical practices to realize this horizon in practice.