Introduction

This article is anchored in the situation of Brazilian society in the Amazon context, which led us to share with indigenous students the findings of the Sociology of Education curricular component in the Languages course. This component requires the teacher to establish the content with the students' life stories, in communities settled and demarcated by the National Indian Foundation - FUNAI. From this perspective, lesson planning was based on the experiences of the indigenous people, their worldview, division of labor, social experiences in the villages, laws, norms, beliefs and applications in the classroom.

Like the other degree courses, the Languages course is part of the Teacher Training Program (PARFOR) through an agreement between Capes and the Amazonas State University, in partnership with the São Gabriel da Cachoeira (SGC) municipal government. The selection of teacher trainers takes place by means of a public notice, which meets the specific requirements of the courses.

It was a very hot day in the Amazon when the group of professors from a public university left Manaus on January 23, 2024, to teach the subject Sociology of Education to 90 indigenous students. In order to work as a teacher in classrooms made up of indigenous students, they needed documentation proving that they had received doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

A total of 81 students took part in the research, native speakers of the mother tongue L1 and who also understand orally the L2, Portuguese, as the official language of Brazil. The pair of professors from the university already knew that there were three official languages in the municipality, the indigenous languages Tucano, Baniwa and Nheengatu, as well as more than 20 other languages and dialects among the speakers.

Full of enthusiasm, the teachers landed at São Gabriel da Cachoeira airport, 998 km from Manaus. The journey took 1.5 hours in an aircraft with capacity for more than 70 passengers. On the flight it was possible to see many Brazilian and foreign researchers looking to discover the place. Below is an illustration of the town's location.

Source: Bing Maps - Route, trip planning, traffic cameras and much more (2024).

Picture 1 Location of São Gabriel da Cachoeira and Manaus - Amazonas 

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2024), the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, belonging to the state of Amazonas, has a territorial area of 109,192,562 Km². The municipality is located in the extreme northwest of Brazil, on the banks of the Rio Negro Basin, and borders two South American countries - it is bordered to the north by Colombia and Venezuela, to the south and east by Santa Isabel do Rio Negro and to the south by Japurá. According to 2022 IBGE data, the resident population is 51,795 inhabitants and 0.47 inhabitants per square kilometer. Much of its territory is made up of the Pico da Neblina National Park, as well as the indigenous lands of Alto Rio Negro, Médio Rio Negro I, II and III and Rio Tea. The municipality is considered a strategic location by the federal government. Nine out of ten of the municipality's inhabitants are indigenous, making it the municipality with the highest concentration of indigenous people in Brazil (IBGE, 2024).

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2024), the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, belonging to the state of Amazonas, has a territorial area of 109,192,562 Km². The municipality is located in the extreme northwest of Brazil, on the banks of the Rio Negro Basin, and borders two South American countries - it is bordered to the north by Colombia and Venezuela, to the south and east by Santa Isabel do Rio Negro and to the south by Japurá. According to 2022 IBGE data, the resident population is 51,795 inhabitants and 0.47 inhabitants per square kilometer. Much of its territory is made up of the Pico da Neblina National Park, as well as the indigenous lands of Alto Rio Negro, Médio Rio Negro I, II and III and Rio Tea. The municipality is considered a strategic location by the federal government. Nine out of ten of the municipality's inhabitants are indigenous, making it the municipality with the highest concentration of indigenous people in Brazil (IBGE, 2024).

By visiting the municipality on January 24, 2024, we tried to understand its characteristics, the location of the classroom and the indigenous reality, in order to adapt the teaching plan, texts and activities to the teaching and learning needs of the indigenous communities and their ethnic groups. On the 25th of the same month, we took part in a cultural activity, known as the Integrating Activity (IA), in the SEMED auditorium, where the Literature, Pedagogy, Geography and History courses take place. The event opened with a lecture by doctoral student Elizangela da Silva Costa, from the Baré ethnic group, known for having coordinated the Rio Negro Indigenous Women's Department (DMIRN) from 2017 to 2020. On this occasion, Costa emphasized her career as an academic and the new challenges of her doctorate. The dialog was motivated and generated an interlocution between the participants (^{Thiollent, 2011}).

On the 26th, the module classes began, during which we had the responsibility of welcoming and getting to know each student through a diagnostic oral presentation. During the presentation, it was possible to get to know the linguistic and cultural variety of the ethnic groups present in the Languages classroom and to establish a connection between theory and the practice of students in professional training.

Sociology of Education, as a varied field, in movement, with conflicting ideas and theories and the result of ideological struggles, brings inclusions, neglects and exclusions into the debate, in order to think about education in indigenous communities. This was perceived from conversations with the participants involved in the context. It is therefore important to understand the picture of education in São Gabriel da Cachoeira as presented in the IBGE survey (^{Apple, 2013}).

When we study the sociology of education, we analyze the interests at stake. And education based on the identity of indigenous peoples represents a position of power, ideology and commitment to history (^{Apple, 2013}). Table 1 thus reveals the need for teacher training and a policy based on the indigenous context and on valuing local culture. The Basic Education Development Index (IDEB) and schooling rates show how multilateral agencies, the globalization of the economy and neoliberalism reveal the ideological nature of society's modeling. Hence the need to cultivate critical thinking with indigenous nations (^{Spring, 2018}).

From the point of view of teacher researchers, we wondered how the Sociology of Education could contribute to the training of indigenous teachers. What? How and why should we talk about indigenous cultural relations, history and memory in sociology classes? Indigenous issues in Brazilian society have always been present in academic research in the Social Sciences. The idea during the lessons was to show that all human beings are organized in society, with their own culture formed by values.

In an attempt to answer these questions, we have set ourselves the following objectives: 1) to reflect on the importance of indigenous studies in the teaching of sociology in undergraduate courses in Languages, in multilingual contexts; 2) to unveil indigenous culture in the practice of indigenous academics in higher education, as well as breaking down the barriers that indigenous students face when dealing with abstract concepts.

The search for definitions of what it means to be “indigenous” is a constant exercise in Brazilian social thought in terms of recovering collective memory, making it an important discussion for discovering otherness. In the 21st century, the use of the term “Indian” as a pejorative term is still perceptible and still used by people, as in the case of the program called BBB24, on an open television station, which generated discussions by different participants in the reality show and among students in the classroom. Faced with these challenges, we sought to show that the concept of society lies in the organization of each indigenous ethnic group, in the way ancestral knowledge is conducted, in social conflicts and in the strengthening of a people's cultural heritage, as guiding pillars for the insertion of the teaching of the subject Sociology of Education for indigenous students at a public university in the state of Amazonas.

Methodology

This research has a qualitative approach and applies ethnographic strategies, which focus on “the study of a phenomenon situated in the place where it occurs, and finally, seeking both to find the meaning of this phenomenon and to interpret the meanings that people give to them” (^{Chizzotti, 2003}, p. 43). The ethnographic strategy “is all the knowledge, beliefs, customs and habits acquired by man as a member of society” Castro (2009). In terms of purpose, the research is descriptive and exploratory (^{Gil, 2008}), and its methodological approach is action research (^{Thiollent, 2011}). Action research was adopted because it is an investigation focusing on learning experiences in two classes in the Languages Degree course. A total of 81 indigenous students who speak the respective languages on the university's grounds took part in the research, which is in line with the study's bias.

The technical procedures adopted for data collection were bibliographical and field research. Bibliographic research is based on material that has already been prepared, mainly in the form of books and scientific articles (^{Gil, 2008}). Field research took place in the university school environment. At this stage, the aim was to acquire information from the 81 participants and thus gather the necessary set of data to be documented and analyzed (Gil, 2008). A diagnosis was applied with questions about the ethnicity, community, profession and gender of the students. Participants over 18 years of age, willing to provide the necessary information and with 100% attendance were included. For ethical reasons, students who were unwilling to participate were excluded.

Another methodological strategy used in the research was the conversation circle. The round table brings together a significant amount of knowledge, subjectivities and needs linked to the local, national and global social context.

Conversation as a research methodology allows us to know who the people are, since they are very diverse and in each oral manifestation there are horizons that intersect and at the same time oppose each other. Conversation in the classroom was therefore an exercise in thinking. Through conversation, we became aware of the networks of meanings (^{Deleuze, 2000}). During the process of presentation, conversation and listening, the indigenous students and teachers were telling us about their school practices in their communities. Conversation, in this case, meant sharing senses and meanings and thinking creatively about the problems of space, collectively creating proposals and transformations of reality, respecting the cultures that have been colonized by capitalism (^{Reis; Oliveira, 2018}).

By dealing with sociological reflections and pedagogical practices mediated by the university with bilingual indigenous students, thinking about the indigenous school allowed us to understand each narrative and each dialog. Narratives can interfere in the knowledge networks of the more than 16 ethnic groups in training on the Portuguese Language course. The act of narrating creates reflections that are often not taken into account when they are not put into collective thinking and the socialization of experiences (^{Reis; Oliveira, 2018}).

To analyze the data collected, we used procedures based on content analysis by ^{Bardin (2016}), for whom words do not only have literal value, but in addition to “metaphors and lexicographic compositions, implicit instances carry social, cultural, ideological and historical values” (Bardin, 2016, p.55). In other words, each expression uttered by the participant is a linguistic phenomenon that can be interpreted.

Sociology in Education in an Indigenous University Context

The Sociology of Education is a subject that enables students in training to critically read the social factors in their surroundings. In this way, it is fundamental in undergraduate courses and, above all, in the training of indigenous teachers in the Literature course, to enable critical thinking and effective participation in the actions of society. Thus, the role and function of sociology in pedagogical praxis, in the training of education professionals, enables a critical understanding of the social, cultural, political and historical relations that involve the education of indigenous peoples.

For ^{Silva (1990}, p. 20), the Sociology of Education “is today a field so fluid and so indeterminate that any attempt to learn its main perspectives of analysis and research themes becomes difficult”. By thinking about the Sociology of Education in an indigenous university context based on class discussions, we bring into the debate the tensions present in education, as well as the power disputes, the varied ideological and political currents, and the economic and cultural variants that influence the lives of the population and the Indigenous Communities in São Gabriel da Cachoeira. In this sense, the subject contributes to the construction of a critical intercultural education that respects and dialogues with indigenous knowledge, promoting the pedagogical autonomy of the communities (^{Castro, 2023}).

Working on the sociology of education is a process that is never finished, because it is complex to understand a society that is tied to liberalism, neoliberalism and globalization. For the counter-hegemonic struggle, it is necessary to dialogue with realities, because there are dimensions of unequal power. There is a great deal of confusion in education around pedagogical practices that appear to be democratic, but which turn out to be forms of economic conservatism and the maintenance of private property.

Of the 81 indigenous academics in the classroom, 75 have smartphones and their indigenous communities are now connected to the internet. In Amazonas, Starlink - High Speed Internet - promises an integrated world, connected anywhere, and this has affected the lives and education of the communities. In class discussions, it was noted that the arrival of the internet and the use of smartphones have brought both positive and negative changes to indigenous nations. Concern has grown over the use of technology and the replacement of hours related to indigenous customs, which are in the process of being forgotten and transformed. The transformations brought about by digital revolutions influence the language and way of thinking and acting of populations.

The logistics from the communities to the municipality of SGC, where the face-to-face classes take place, take place by small river, with each trip lasting an average of two (2) to seven (7) days, or more, at the expense of each student. So, during the break from classes, the internet is a tool that enables social inclusion between students and teachers at the university.

The transformation of these realities with values, customs and consumption requires new learning and rethinking of meanings and their consequences for indigenous peoples. Here, we position ourselves using ^{Hall's (2015}) words about modern identities, their displacement and/or fragmentation. Are these “actions pro-moving a structural change of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, nationality and equipping the collective into social individuals?” (Hall, 2015, p. 10). In the participants' narratives, we identified provisional, variable and problematic identities. The demands of post-modernity have created a being without a fixed identity, which is constantly changing, since there is an outside world and various identities that these previously unknown worlds offer (Hall, 2015).

The comments made by the indigenous students indicate that their culture is not accepted by the culture of the whites, who demand that they master another language and adopt other customs in order to be accepted into the “new” society. Interaction with this “new” society therefore does not follow indigenous logic, but the logic of the whites. Thus, indigenous people are faced with contradictory worlds that can lead to a collapse in the process of identifying their ethnicity (^{Hall, 2015}).

Our dialog with the teachers in training moves towards the discussion of post-colonialism. This discussion relates to the subaltern, dealing with groups that are often dispossessed of their lands, cultures and identities and removed to the periphery, being offered knowledge that reinforces Western power structures (^{Young, 2015}).

One of the highlights of our classes was the memories, stories, collectivity and the recovery of these ethnic processes. When asked about their gods and religious processes, the 90 students pointed to the Evangelical and Catholic religions and the God of the West as their representations. None of them referred to their own cultural and religious legacies, which reveals the power of the West and its imbrication in indigenous cultures.

Thus, we can understand the role of the university as essential in the critical training of indigenous teachers and the sociology of education as a promoter of debates, doubts and dialogues about an education that is consistent with the needs of the community and indigenous peoples.

Analysis and Discussions

The exercise of honing the skills of listening, thinking and recording was an arduous task aimed at restoring memories, resources and elucidating the beauty of the simplicity of the senses, given life and its harmonious relationship with nature. This exercise was aimed at preparing people to take a stand against power structures, recognizing limitations, acknowledging diversity and preserving indigenous traditions with responsibility and autonomy.

Of the participants, 100% are indigenous, living in the headwaters of the Negro, Alto Rio Negro, Pari-cachoeira, Médio Içana, Warupes, Tiquiê, Iauaretê and Maturacá rivers, in the state of Amazonas, on the border with Colombia and Venezuela. Table 2 shows a summary of the ethnic groups that are part of the UEA training course for indigenous teachers.

The rivers in the state of Amazonas are winding roads that bear the enigmatic marks of fallen land. However, in SGC, a municipality bathed by the dark River Negro, a different mosaic is visible. There, the geography has a rocky formation, which differs from other rivers in the state of Amazonas. For the indigenous people, the rivers and rocks are sacred and gods live in them. Table 2 below reveals data from the survey on the ethnicity, languages and origin of each people.

The system of political organization is patriarchal and within the communities there is a division of labor. However, each ethnic group manages the best way to sociologically conduct work, both inside and outside the community, according to their values. The social questionnaire showed that the majority of students enrolled in the degree course in Languages are men. This indicates a patriarchal universe within the communities.

As for linguistic issues and their variations in the classroom, we developed a methodology for explaining the content. First, the students were introduced individually, including their name, ethnicity, language, place of origin and intentions for the course. The second moment involved the process of listening and sharing knowledge. We used ethnography through participant observation. Finally, the third stage made it possible to connect the experiences, knowledge and cultural beliefs with the content of the subject Sociology of Education.

At every stage, it was possible to see the concern of each student. For them, studying for a degree in Languages is an opportunity to strengthen the language of each ethnic group. However, for one of the students from the Yuhupdeh ethnic group, “young people no longer want to speak the language of their people” (narrative collected in the conversation circle, 2024).

As a strategy to make the lessons easier to understand, we use illustrations, images and stories to get out of the abstract and make the content concrete through the images in the lessons. Each student could contribute to the discussions. The illustrations were non-verbal means of communication, generating meanings pertinent to the daily lives of each participant, who did not master the L2, Portuguese.

The results of the research showed that the profile of the academics, in terms of their work in indigenous teaching, revealed that 90% of them already work or have worked as basic education teachers in rural areas of indigenous lands, having been hired by the municipal or state department. As such, the training of indigenous teachers is marked by a continuous process and many struggles that are woven together on a daily basis. Below is table 3, with details of the teachers who work in the public school system in the municipality.

The participants were unfamiliar with the Sociology of Education curriculum and found it difficult to understand certain terms. Thus, when talking about the theoretical classics of sociology, the teacher had to pause many times in order to explain each event and translate the scientific words.

In dialogue with ^{Candau (1997}), in his text on “multicultural pluralism, everyday school life and teacher training”, he argues that cultural issues need to be guaranteed in society. The experiences brought by the indigenous students are real and contribute to meaningful learning, generating symbolism that makes it possible to reflect on identity and one's own culture.

To make it easier for students who didn't know any of the vocabulary to learn, those who were able to understand the content helped their colleagues through simultaneous translation. Conversations took place between ethnic groups of the same language. Within each group, there was a leader who socialized the understanding of the content learned. The practice of listening and speaking skills reinforced the sociology of education. For the Tukano student, “there are words in our language that have no relation to the L2 - Portuguese Language, and we try to establish a relationship with some indigenous object, in the same way with the content we study, there are terms we don't know” (narrative extracted from the conversation circle, 2024).

In the villages, the indigenous people make a living from family farming, using the principles of sustainability. This reinforces the pillars of culture, economy and the environment. Among the tasks carried out are the production of flour, ancestral drinks, the production of handicrafts and the preservation of cultural traditions, their knowledge and know-how, as shown in the mosaic below.

Source: Authors' collection (2024).

Picture 2 Mosaic illustrating political organization 

The mosaic in figure 2 shows the variety of knowledge narrated, including ritual, myth, handicrafts, indigenous cuisine and others, which dialog with ancestral and sacred knowledge and which are reflected in the learning environment at the university (^{Carvalho, 2022}). The classroom becomes a time for socializing articulated knowledge, generating intercultural connections. In this sense, knowledge is a two-way street.

The differentiated pedagogical practice used by the teachers enabled the students to engage and perform better on the coefficient. Thus, with regard to the performance coefficient, of the 81 students who completed the Sociology of Education curricular component, we have the following data: n=5 students obtained an average grade of 6.5, n=3 students obtained a grade of 9.7, and n=73 students obtained a grade of 9.8. The overall average for both classes was 8.6, which is considered satisfactory for bilingual classes, as shown in the following graph.

Source: Prepared by the authors (2024).

Chart 1 Performance Coefficient: Average: 86 

In this respect, the data in Graph 1 shows that the differentiated methodology, focusing on the role of the student, brings satisfactory results. For ^{Carvalho (2015}), the national education policy in its maximum law - the Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education (LDB/9394) - establishes indigenous school education as a right to be ensured to populations. Thus, the law calls for the recovery of memory and the valorization of indigenous identity and languages. It also states that municipalities and states are responsible for drawing up public policies and guaranteeing ethnic differences.

Conclusion

The study allowed us to see that the sociology of education makes it possible to ask questions and reflect on society and those who live in it and, above all, on the issues surrounding education. The contribution of sociology to the training of indigenous teachers is already a reality, because within indigenous organizations, in the places where they live, there is a hierarchy of tasks and division of labour.

In this sense, the study has made it possible to reflect on the importance of the sociology of education for academics training indigenous teachers on a degree course in Languages, in multilingual contexts. In addition to revealing indigenous culture as an exercise in valorization in higher education, with differentiated pedagogical contributions. By weaving the relationship between theory and practice in the school environment, we exercise citizens' rights. Indigenous cultural, historical and memory relations in Sociology classes were revived through discussions and pedagogical practices.

During the conversations and exercises, the classes had limitations when it came to using Portuguese, as they were literate in indigenous languages. The group dynamics were divided by ethnic group, with the aim of facilitating understanding and breaking down the language barrier. In each group there was a volunteer translator, simultaneous between the academic speakers, in order to facilitate understanding of the lessons.

Having said this, we understand that, in order to develop teaching praxis with bilingual indigenous students, it is necessary to interconnect ancestral experiences and knowledge with the theory of the curricular component.