Introduction

In Brazil, both the expansion and consolidation of the history of education are linked to the performance of postgraduate programs in Education, embodied in the participation of researchers who, in the polyphony of their writings, interpret, rewrite, and disseminate the educational past (^{Alves, Nery, & Silva, 2019}).

Considering their contributions to stabilizing the history of education, ^{Pinheiro (2019}) grouped these researchers into the following five generations: the first from 1838 to 1910, the second from 1911 to 1965, the third from 1966 to 1980, the fourth from 1981 to 2000, and the fifth from 2001. Herein, for argumentation, it is worth pointing out that, in the first generation, the treatises about the history of education written by intellectuals from Education, Medicine, Languages, among others, stood out. In the second generation, the initial configurations of the history of Brazilian education as a field of research began, driven by the implementation of postgraduate courses in Education. The third generation is referred to as the landmark of the proper space for historians of education. The fourth generation, in turn, joined the expansion and consolidation of postgraduate courses whose research was also developed. In the fifth generation, the current one, researchers enjoy certain investigative stability due to the research groups, lines, and consolidated programs (^{Pinheiro, 2019}). Thus, the importance of postgraduate programs in the embodiment, consolidation, and expansion of educational historiographical research is perceptible.

However, especially concerning the interests of educational historiographical studies on the black population, it was only after 1990 that the gaps in this field began to be filled. Books, research projects, and academic articles, among other works of literature, began to focus on understanding education from a racial perspective. Despite the interdictions, some black people became intellectuals and figured as protagonists in the history of education (^{Barros, 2018}).

It is fundamental to the historical-educational construction to understand social subjects in interaction with their context. Interdisciplinary knowledge in interface with political, economic, cultural, and social issues, among others, are also indispensable for such an understanding (^{Lopes, Fialho, & Machado, 2018}). Therefore, we investigated the characterization of the production of knowledge conveyed by the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD) between 2003 and 2021, supported by the formative (auto) biography of black Brazilian educators.

We developed a qualitative research (^{Minayo, 2012}) to fulfill our investigation and achieve the goal of understanding the training trajectory of black educators based on the (auto) biographical studies published by BDTD from 2003 to 2021. The methodology is supported by the state of the art (^{Ferreira, 2002}; ^{Fialho, Sousa, & Nascimento, 2020}; ^{Romanowski & Ens, 2006}) with results being subjected to thematic content analysis (^{Bardin, 2016}) since the motto surpassed the descriptive boundaries of identifying and mapping pre-existing production on the subject and established an analytical dialogue with the consulted authors.

The relevance of this research is allowing for a compilation of studies that deal with the (auto) biography of black teachers focusing on teaching training and shedding light on the similarities and dissonances permeating the black lives. In addition, it also elucidates the clashes and deconstructions of prejudiced paradigms that historically relegated this population to a lower level of importance in the country’s educational scenario. It allows us, therefore, to show the mechanisms of overcoming and the educational contributions of black educators, often invisible in historiography.

The text is divided into four sections. The introduction presents the object of study, problem, objectives, and the relevance of the research. The second section brings the methodology and treatment of empirical data, and the third presents and analyzes the results. Finally, the fourth part introduces our final considerations by returning to the objective of study, suggestions for further work, and the description of possible limitations of the research.

Methodology

We carried out a study with a qualitative approach since it provides the problematization of theories and hypotheses that are essential to the understanding of human and social experiences, values, conceptions, and actions (^{Minayo, 2012}). Methodologically, we chose the state of the art for its bibliographic character and the possibility to map and discuss the disseminated production of the object (^{Ferreira, 2002}; ^{Romanowski & Ens, 2006}). Furthermore, it favors the scientific development as it diagnoses the condition of the object that is the focus of the investigative activity, indicating gaps in knowledge and inspiring new approaches to fill possible gaps, or update previous research (^{Fialho et al., 2020}).

We prioritized developing the study based on production indexed in the BDTD since this library currently integrates and disseminates full texts of 189,130 ​​theses and 513,661 dissertations defended in 126 public and private higher education institutions in the country (^{Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology [Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia - IBICT], 2021}).

Data were collected in through an advanced search of six steps and sorted by descending date, with no temporal restriction and adding the wildcard character ‘*’ to the root of the keywords to identify all variations of the terms and in all fields search, as follows: 1) autobiografia AND professor* AND negr*; 2) autobiografia AND docente AND negr*; 3) autobiografia AND educador* AND negr*; 4) biografia AND professor* AND negr*; 5) biografia E docente* AND negr*; e 6) biografia AND educador* AND negr*. Therefore, we could locate theses and dissertations that contained these described combinations in any part of the text, with the respective variations of gender and number, namely: autobiografia, autobiografias, biografia, biografias AND professor, professora, professores, professoras AND educador, educadora, educadores, educadoras AND negro, negra, negros, negras, whose quantification is shown in Table 1 below.

Source: The authors.

Table 1 Combination of descriptors and quantity of products located, excluded, and included. 

After reading the titles and abstracts of the 74 products found, we selected 7 theses and 14 dissertations for the second stage. However, with the fluctuating reading of the 21 selected texts, we found that one dissertation emphasized the student trajectory of quilombola graduates in Rural Education (^{Parreira, 2018}) and not teaching per se but, and another one used the autobiography of a freed African slave, non-teacher, to teach ethnic-racial relations in the discipline of History (^{Silva, 2018}a). Therefore, these two products were suppressed, remaining in the study corpus 7 theses and 12 dissertations.

We used the following exclusion criteria: 1) repeated texts or products using the words ‘negro’, ‘negra’, ‘negros’, and ‘negras’ in a different sense of ethnic-racial, or that did not discuss (auto) biographies of teachers. Thus, in addition to recurrences, we also disregarded the products that dealt with white teachers dedicated to the fight against racism, or brought the word ‘negro’ (black) and their variations in a context different from our study goal, as follows: concerning people’s surnames, geographic location such as Rio Negro, ‘black culture’, ‘black literature’, self-portrait in black, Academia das Agulhas Negras, black students, among others.

We analyzed the content of the products qualified to respond to our study scope according to ^{Bardin (2016}). For such a purpose, we carried out the steps of pre-analysis, material exploitation, treatment of results, inference, and interpretation. Accordingly, we subjected the formulation of the corpus to the following rules: exhaustiveness, that is, no product was omitted without reason; representativeness, meaning that the sampling was described as sufficient to represent the theme; homogeneity, where the same criteria were adopted for selecting the products, and pertinence, which is the aptitude of dissertations and theses regarding the formulated objective (^{Bardin, 2016}).

This project was appreciated and approved by the Ethics Committee since we use only public texts; however, all research phases faithfully respect the ethical, legal, scientific principles, and copyright.

Results

Table 2 systematizes the 19 selected products sequentially numbered from 01 to 19, by year of publication (from the most recent to the oldest), authorship and year of defense, the title of the thesis or dissertation, level of the postgraduate program (in which item ‘D’ is attributed to the doctoral course and item ‘M’ to the master’s course), course, and acronym of the educational institution to which the research is linked, as well as the geographic location of the university.

Source: The authors.

Table 2 Details of the results regarding authorship, year of defense, title, level, program, institution and state. 

Notwithstanding the preponderance of postgraduate programs in Education in the studies involving (auto) biographies of black educators in 15 of the 19 products, possibly for addressing the life history of the teacher’s training, the interest in the subject is shared by researchers from other programs as well, such as Languages, Arts, History, and Linguistics. Despite the biographical genre, these do not enjoy investigative exclusivity since fruitful reflections on the history of education were built on the trajectory of black intellectuals. Indeed, in the field of Languages, ^{Albuquerque (2021}) analyzed the statements of the black teacher, writer, and philosopher Conceição Evaristo to understand the adverse conditions of downgrading of her writings. In Arts, teacher ^{Rachel (2019}), based on what she called autobiographical impulses, expressed the variants of the modern-colonial socio-historical process that subjugate her, for assuming she is black and lesbian. In History, ^{Macedo (2018}) was guided by the methodology of (auto) biographical research to understand the narratives of black teachers about the implementation of ^{Law nº 10.639 (2003}), which included Afro-Brazilian cultural history in the teaching curriculum of elementary and high school. In Linguistics, ^{Carneiro (2014}) analyzed the constitution of identities in a linguistic-discursive sequence that is part of the biographical scripts and narratives of black teachers.

The distribution of the theses and dissertations by defense date indicated that three products were defended in 2021, two in 2019, three in 2018, two in 2017, one in 2016, one in 2015, one in 2014, two in 2011, one in 2010, two in 2009, followed by a time-lapse of five years until a final dissertation published in 2003. It was only from 2003 onwards that black (auto) biographical narratives started being considered in stricto sensu postgraduate academic studies in Brazil. Until the beginning of the 21st century such a theme remained invisible. A longitudinal reading allows us to infer that, more recently, from 2017 onwards, the issue of teachers’ gender became an object of study in the localized products (^{Oliveira, 2017}; ^{Rachel, 2019}).

As for the origin, such studies flourished in all Brazilian regions. The largest numerical expression is from the South region, with six products: one from “Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná” (Unioeste); one from “Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul” (UFRGS); one from “Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense” (Unesc); two from “Universidade Federal Santa Maria” (UFSM), and another from “Universidade Federal do Paraná” (UFPR). The Northeast region was responsible for five productions: two from “Universidade Federal da Paraíba” (UFPB); two from “Universidade Federal de Pernambuco” (UFPE), and one from “Universidade Federal do Ceará” (UFC). The Southeast accounted for four works: one from “Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas” (PUC-Campinas); one from “Universidade Estadual Paulista” (Unesp), and two from “Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais” (UFMG). The North participated with two studies, both from “Universidade Federal do Pará” (UFPR). Likewise, the Midwest, with two, all from “Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso” (UFMT). These data demonstrate that the concern with studies on the subject in question spreads throughout Brazil.

It is worth clarifying that we sought to draw a(n) (auto) biographical synthesis of the investigated teachers; however, when starting this task, despite several texts referring to this historiographical object, some of the data showed to be quite restrictive, even pseudonyms were used to preserve the identity of those investigated. ^{Duarte and Grazziotin (2018}) reported a similar scenario when discussing the state of knowledge of biographical elements when researching the history of education published in national journals from 1999 to 2016. Unlike the (auto) biographical methodological prescriptions, the authors found an emphasis on other elements of the investigated subjects’ lives, such as intellectual production and network of relationships rather than on themselves. Therefore, without discrediting the importance of the analyzed production to the construction of historical educational knowledge, they inferred that such a domain still lacks greater theoretical-methodological consistency.

Despite these reasonable considerations, which may guide the educational historiographical (auto) biographical research, our study could specify that the authors approached, with greater or lesser completeness, (auto) biographical data of self-declared black 47 teachers and 16 teachers, including five homosexuals (4 males and 1 female). Such a predominance of the female figure in the aforementioned academic research ‘roughly’ reflects a subversion of current paradigms by demonstrating and denouncing the absence and invisibility of women as subjects of science (^{Louro, 2014}). In the case of black women, this challenge is even greater, as she “[...] appears deprived of her role as a forger of a national existence” (^{Evaristo, 2009}, p. 145).

The studies analyzed reveal that the life stories involved were recapitulated by oral testimonies and/or revisited documents since the (auto) biography of living educators, or in memoria, preserves the memory and highlights their socio-educational contributions. This provides an understanding of the history of education (^{Neves, 2021}) since although traditional historiography privileges written documentary sources, oral testimonies bring together inestimable scientific value (^{Barreto, Gomes, Machado, & Sena, 2021}). The consulted production is relevant for providing an understanding on the colonialism rooted in Brazilian schools and the pedagogical practices of decolonization (^{Ramos, 2021}). In addition, it transversally approaches the Afro-Brazilian culture established by ^{Law nº 10.639 (2003}), as well as food and nutrition education in the school curriculum, according to ^{Law nº 13.666 (2018}), which amended Law nº 9.394 of 1996 (Guidelines and Bases of National Education) (^{Paula, 2021}). The material also acknowledges and interprets the narratives of black teachers in ethnic-racial struggles (^{Souza, 2019}) and clarifies the perceptions of black teachers on their trajectories as teachers (^{Farias, 2018}). It is also worth mentioning the analyses of gender and race dislocations of quilombola teachers in Minas Gerais (^{Silva, 2018}b), the educational experiences of black gay teachers (^{Oliveira, 2017}), and the personal and professional trajectories of four anonymous black teachers from different generations: a retired elderly woman, two aged 34 and 35, respectively, at the time of the research, with consolidated careers, and a 22-year-old beginner teacher, all working in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul (^{Santos, 2010}). Finally, we highlight the analyses of the development processes of identity of university professors from childhood to entering the market (^{Holanda, 2009}), and of the ethnic-racial identity of black teachers and its influence on the curricular practices of confronting racism in the school space (Silva, 2009). Additionally, it is also worth pointing out the understanding of the conceptions and positioning of black teachers concerning the issue of racial relations (^{Santana, 2003}).

Specifically regarding the theses and dissertations consulted containing full (auto) biographies, ^{Espindola (2017}) studied ten teachers of first languages in the 20th century Parahyba. Among them, only Eudésia Vieira, born in 1894 and died in 1981, was identified as a black poet, writer, and doctor, having been the first woman to join the “Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Paraibano”. This study allowed to interpreting the experiences of intellectuals in the process of primary schooling in Parahyba from 1824 to 1922. ^{Oliveira (2016}) scrutinized the biography of Domingos Sylvio Nascimento, born in 1882 and died in 1947, who worked from 1903 to 1947 in the state of Pará. In addition to being a teacher, school principal, and writer of History textbooks, he became a professor of Brazilian History with a bachelor’s degree in Legal and Social Sciences. ^{Godoi (2015}) studied oral history to collect from family members and documentary sources the biography of the black normalist and teacher Hermínia Torquato da Silva, born in 1918 and died in 1956, working in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, in the First Republic. ^{Silva (2011}) wrote an autobiography of Professor Henrique Antunes Cunha Júnior, who taught at the “Universidade de São Paulo” (USP) and is currently a professor at the UFC, to understand the socio-genesis of the concept of black ethnicity in Brazilian education. ^{Rodrigues (2011}) reconstructed the biography of Professor Florentina da Silva Souza, currently a professor at the “Universidade Federal da Bahia” (UFBA) to learn how black intellectuals gained access to universities in the 1990s.

This study is based on the premise that (auto) biographical studies reverberate in the reconstruction of the social context of a certain period imbricated with the individual and collective history of certain personalities (^{Fialho, Lima, & Queiroz, 2019}). Indeed, by analyzing the set of these (auto) biographies, we unveil their narrative and interpretive similarities and dissonances, which are addressed in the discussion section.

Discussion

After completing the mapping and description stages, we proceeded with the full floating reading of the content of the theses and dissertations outlined in this state-of-the-art. Such a process allowed us to establish of the following three analytical categories: 1) persistence of racial slurs and racism in the school environment, 2) trajectories to become a teacher, and 3) resignification of teaching praxis.

Category: persistence of racial slurs and racism in the school environment

At first, the consulted texts reveals that the expression ‘racial injury’ used in the above-mentioned category did not appear literally. However, it was thought based on the exegesis of data from the studies compared with the typification of such a crime, according to the requirements of the Penal Code, Article 140, paragraph 3, wording introduced by ^{Law No. 10,741 (2003}). It corresponds to an offense to the dignity or honor of someone based on elements referring to race, color, ethnicity, religion, origin or condition of an elderly person or a person with a disability, according to ^{Decree-Law No. 2,848 (1940}). The understanding of the term ‘racism’ refers to the definitions contained in ^{Law No. 7,716 (1989}), article 1, “[...] crimes resulting from discrimination or prejudice based on race, color, ethnicity, religion or national origin [...]”, as in ^{Law No. 9,459 (1997}). From these legal texts, among other differences, it appears that in racism, criminal conduct offends the rights of a community, while in racial injury the scope of the injury is more restricted to a particular victim.

When questioning how the school space is characterized regarding the permanence, or not, of racial insult and/or racism against black students and teachers, the analyzed studies mostly attribute the persistence of such illicit acts in the structure of institutions teaching at all educational levels. Thus, contrary to the movement that should exist for black students, these environments are characterized by exclusionary and limiting hostility toward learning (^{Carvalho & França, 2019}). Likewise, against black teachers, interdictions, and disqualifications regarding the exercise of teaching persist. ^{Rodrigues (2011}) wrote a dissertation analyzing the trajectory of the university professor Florentina Silva Souza and identified the same scenario. The author found that despite being disguised under a fallacious discourse of equality, attitudes of the inferiority of black people) in the school space are frequent.

As for the stage of life of subjects affected by racial crimes, not even children are spared (^{Costa, Souza, & Silva, 2020}). Families often go out of their way to protect them; however, when they take the little ones away from the family environment and introduce them to school, the problems follow one another (^{Holanda, 2009}). From a very early age, black children face racism at school, or rather, even in daycare centers. In the later stages of early childhood education, these hostilities are perpetrated. Professionals, educators, and managers are unprepared and/or neglectful to deal with this problem. By conceiving it as normal, they intensify the isolation and inferiority experienced by black students (^{Macedo, 2018}; ^{Santana, 2003}), as preconceived ideas at school reflect racial prejudice in institutionalized discourses, or not, resulting in segregation and even school dropout (^{Carneiro, 2014}).

Even more serious, in the contradiction of the construction of identities, immersed in conflicts of denial and affirmation of their blackness, it is only when children grow up and acquire maturity is that they will be able to decipher the reason for the indifference coming from everyone, from the words merciless and denied opportunities, namely: skin color, hair texture, and ancestry of ethnic-racial belonging that are not in line with the European standards (^{Paula, 2021}; ^{Silva, 2009}). This means that the ‘phenotype social marker’ is the determinant of the social spaces occupied, the treatment received, and the functions performed (^{Silva, 2018a}), from an early age until they become elderly. As questioned by Professor Conceição Evaristo: “[...] what are these rules of Brazilian society for us to see a woman become an exponent in the field of literature only at the age of 71?” (^{Albuquerque, 2021}, p. 33). Indeed, racism and feminism use biological differences to make them inferior, and the structural effectiveness of racism, as a set of ideologically articulated practices, refers to the racial division of labor, in which the best share is reserved for wealthy whites (^{Gonzalez, 2020}).

Overcoming the childhood stage, inequality in the space of educational institutions still prevails, as reported by ^{Rodrigues (2011}) regarding Professor Florentina Souza, since becoming a university professor did not neutralize such aggressions. Students often confront their competence for teaching and the fellow professors disqualified the scientific character of their research, reducing them to militancy exclusively. For ^{Ramos (2021}), the school, by associating itself with colonialism, even in graduate studies, prints insecurities, fears, and interdictions, perpetuating the contempt for the history and culture of black people. The colonial persistence in the school environment is not limited to the scope of elementary education since in higher education there continues to be contempt for ancestry and black culture. Therefore, we must identify and deconstruct all educational levels in which racism continues to be established (^{Davis, 2019}).

If an intellectual, in addition to being black, has a sexual orientation different from heteronormativity, the situation is more serious. In this regard, ^{Oliveira (2017}) adds that the presence of a homosexual exercising the teaching profession induces racist and homophobic discourses proving that the school has not changed much, since even in the teachers’ lounge, battles between teachers take place (black people and gays versus whites and heterosexuals). By the way, it is emphasized that at the level of education policy formulation, the gender theme remains prohibited, as evidenced by the analytical study of 25 state and district education plans, enacted from 2014 to 2016, where the place of gender and differing sexualities of the male and female dichotomy is still in dispute (^{Vianna & Bortolini, 2020}).

However, on this issue, the legal and political achievements resulting from arduous struggles are not denied since the ethnic-racial debate is not completely absent, but the few pedagogical therapeutic initiatives are subject to silencing due to the school reproduction of the structures of the society of colonial domination over the black, which imposes on him/her invisibility, immobilization, subordination, and contempt (^{Silva, 2009}). Affirmative laws and public policies have indeed operationalized significant changes (^{Zuin & Bastos, 2019}); however, due to the historical naturalization and structural racism that permeate the entire Brazilian society, there must be effective actions considering the factors of race, gender, and class to change offensive behaviors and guarantee access and permanence in school for students and black teachers.

Category: trajectories to becoming a teacher

In this category, to laconically welcome the multiple challenges and resistances experienced by those who turned from subalternity and rose to the teaching profession, at first, it is reflected that it is implausible to summarize the narratives and historiographical writings conveyed in the products surveyed in an exact number of pages without the danger of incurring the stratagem of biographical illusion (^{Barreto, Machado, & Nunes, 2021}). Teaching is a complex not a static one action that is produced and reformulated according to the social conditions of those who implement it in every moment in history (^{Santos, Fialho, & Medeiros, 2021}).

Beforehand, blackness is emphasized as the common point in the profile of those approached; however, the difficulties to becoming teachers are increased as they are detailed in women, quilombolas, lesbians, gays, and the very poor.

As proof of this, ^{Holanda (2009}) investigated ten black professors from the UFC, six men and four women. Only one of them reported coming from a wealthy family. Aggravated by material poverty and racial prejudice, the training path of these professionals is described by profuse effort and long hours of study. Few benefited from the encouragement of family members; others walked by themselves until they reached the goal of social respect. Some of the barriers faced involve the early distancing from family life, delivery to the adoptive mother, the concomitant alcoholism of the parent, the illiteracy of the parents, peripheral or rural housing (Holanda, 2009), the death of the father, and early pregnancy (^{Santos, 2010}).

In particular, for black teachers to establish themselves as subjects of knowledge and power and to overcome male symbolic dictates, produce new meanings, and reaffirm female identity, it is necessary, a priori, to deconstruct the disqualified image of women with their praxis (^{Furlin, 2021}). Through such a prism, the path they trodden seems to be more arduous.

Indeed, black students run into an almost total lack of self-esteem and obstacles to reconciling work and study, due to their strenuous daily work and studying at night (^{Oliveira, 2017}). In the same reasoning, five black, poor, peripheral, and quilombola teachers who are part of ^{Silva’s object of study (2018}b), recall a routine of obstacles until becoming teachers: daily confrontations of pendular detachment between the place of residence and training, hectic traffic on roads without paving, accommodations for indulgence in the homes of friends or family closer to the study sites, and carrying out household chores in the early hours of the morning to provide the necessary time for studies.

From the paradigm of Professor Cunha Júnior, as a protagonist of the struggle in defense of Afro-descendants, it is suggested that the excluding, discriminatory, prejudiced, and racist historical process against black people in Brazil is undergoing sociogenic and psychogenic transformation (^{Silva, 2011}). These aspects are interdependent and appropriated from ^{Elias’ (1994}) reconciliation, significant in the transformation movements in the relationships woven in society resulting from changes in the social and psychological structures of individuals. However, the difficulties persist for both teachers of the basic education and higher education teachers.

The theses of ^{Oliveira (2017}) and ^{Rachel (2019}) introduced the thematic categorical analysis of the trajectory of black teachers whose sexual orientation is not included in the heteronormativity established by society. The autobiographies of four black gay teachers showed that the devices of power, along the lines of Michel Foucault’s thought, are an attempt to give the body some use for economic systems, excluding those that do not fit the established standards. This appears in racism and homophobia, which demonize such subjects by moving them to the margins of society and teaching practice, resulting in superior setbacks due to the meeting of sexist and racist tyranny thrown against the same person (^{Oliveira, 2017}). The overlapping of identities of the intellectual minorities identified in this study, due to the interdependence of social relations, introduces intersectionality to the debate as an instrument of political struggle against the multiple forms of oppression, calling for the collective thinking of resistance strategies and, with them, the means for not reproducing these diseases (^{Hirata, 2014}). This is because, as a metaphorical concept, intersectionality captures and clarifies the structural and dynamic harms of two or more axes of subordination, such as racism, patriarchy, class oppression, and other forms of discrimination, since these phenomena are not mutually exclusive (^{Crenshaw, 2002}).

Contrary to the findings found in most of the products consulted, when reconstructing Domingos Sylvio’s teaching career, which began in 1903, at the age of 20, we found no records of obstacles in the path where he projected himself as a respected intellectual in the transition phase from the Empire to the Republic in the state of Pará. In this study, among other questions, it was asked how a black man born in the slave regime assumed a prominent position in a linear career. Inferring that Domingos “[...] remained in the dominant ideological line of his time [...]”, even though he was an outstanding teacher, school director, member of the Higher Council of Primary Education, and writer, we identified no intellectual performance against racism (^{Oliveira, 2016}, p. 87). However, this case seems to be the exception rather than the rule, given the marked training mishaps experienced by black teachers since childhood, which are perpetuated for many during their teaching work.

Category: resignification of teaching praxis

This category seeks to clarify how black teachers give new meaning to teaching. The term ‘praxis’ is used referring to the meaning thought by ^{Freire (1987}) as the simultaneous reflection of the pedagogical practice to overcome the contradictions of the world, without which activism becomes verbalism, but, when present, can favor the overcoming of the oppressive reality.

The studies identify that the majority of those investigated, in an attitude of resistance, direct their teaching trajectory towards the deconstructing racism against black people. In the identity paths, as poor women and quilombolas, the teachers mentioned by ^{Silva (2018}b) identified themselves as new political subjects and members of black feminism and questioned the social imaginary about the subordinate place of black teachers in society, not restricting themselves to the limits of pure and simple teaching. Instead, they ratified their (re)existences against institutional and epistemic racism, engendering a praxis of strengthening political and affective bonds with other black subjects.

Black teachers with a sexual orientation different from heteronormativity understand that the trajectory marked by denial, control, and interdiction peculiar to racism and homophobia is processed while students and continues during teaching (^{Oliveira, 2017}). Such a conjuncture encourages empowerment and the ‘process of (r)existence’. By the way, the condition of the author herself - as a woman, black and lesbian - did not intimidate her, on the contrary, one day she dared to be indignant against the colonial slavery logic, transforming herself into a teacher, researcher, and public servant, without renouncing her identity and sexual orientation. With that, she rose from a subordinate position and encouraged herself to denounce the demotion suffered as a result of the persistence of colonial, colonizing, hegemonic, heteronormative, Eurocentric practices, valuing white over black, directing his pedagogical practice in Arts to the dismantling of these standards (^{Rachel, 2019}). This black feminism, from the perspective of intersectionality, reveals black women positioned far from heteropatriarchal white cisgenderism, aimed at decolonizing hegemonic conceptions and healing colonial wounds (^{Akotirene, 2018}).

However, the effort is not unfinished, on the contrary, it requires permanent movement since it is understood that the training space, although it has been conquered with painful perseverance, is still contested by the training contents established by whites from the dominant layers and directed towards their own interests (^{Silva, 2018}b).

Another relevant fact that fits into this category is the redress of the condition that subjugated black teachers before becoming teachers, which can be seen in the clippings of ^{Oliveira (2017}, p. 154): “[...] the return of the black queer to the institution that tried unsuccessfully to expel her has a taste of victory”. Indeed, the confrontation of racism in the school space is a flag unfurled by the teachers. However, as mentioned in the previous category, the exception is found in the biography of Professor Domingos, who developed a contradictory educational project, sometimes reproducing what had been instituted in the First Republic, sometimes occupying the same hegemonic position of domination, when he had not acted against racist ideologies (^{Oliveira, 2016}). However, after this example, which was situated in a different historical time from the others where it was even more difficult to understand racial segregation and its losses, in the foreground, the teaching practice of black people, for the most part, is about resistance, identity affirmation, and overcoming, so to speak, as in the report of teacher Norma, in the biography by ^{Carneiro (2014}, p. 33): “[...] I have always tried to overcome myself, wanting to speak more and say: hey, I’m black, but I’m here. I always got good grades. I’ve always been very good, look, I’m black! But I am here!”.

After all, the voices of black teachers, even if they crash into the institutional walls of silencing, show a potential for overcoming inequalities through practices that build ethnic-racial identities (^{Silva, 2009}) to chase away the illusory discourse of the myth of racial democracy and effectively affect the way society behaves concerning black people. Indeed, as ^{Araújo and Soares (2019}) point out, it is urgent for teachers to promote pedagogical actions that contribute to the process of valuing the identity of black students.

Final remarks

This study aimed to understand the formative trajectories of black educators from the (auto) biographical studies published by the BDTD from 2003 to 2021. The qualitative study of state of the art allowed us to establish the following three categories after a content analysis: 1) persistence of racial slurs and racism in the school space, 2) trajectories to become a teacher, 3) and re-signification of teaching praxis, problematized from the dialogue between the referenced authors.

Reconstructing the training trajectories of black teachers based on the theses and dissertations cataloged in the BDTD allowed us to infer that despite the potential of educational institutions to deconstruct discriminatory and racist practices, the reproduction of colonialism is still predominant, insisting on disqualifying and silencing black students and teachers.

It is true that despite the existence of laws and public policies in favor of the black population, the fallacious discourse of racial democracy is still predominant since the current norms still have fissures in social effectiveness.

In Brazil, the phenotype of blackness works as a social marker that painfully separates black people from spaces, recognition, and opportunities. Much worse, as black students and teachers differ in their non-heteronormative sexual orientations, in poorer, peripheral, among other diversities, the offenses become more vehement. Incorporating these individuals into the teaching staff does not guarantee exemption from injuries and racial prejudice since even within the scope of the teaching category, the analyzed studies testify to the persistence of these injuries.

In the reconstruction of their trajectories, very few black teachers come from families with resources, social prestige, and recognized intellectuality. Most of them collect memories of a great effort to emerge from the marginalization resulting from the condition of economic poverty and lack of education. However, these subjects have converted the setbacks into a dynamo for the activism necessary to overcome the oppressive reality.

Finally, it is worth noting that this study is not generalizable because of the limitation of the search based on the descriptors listed in the methodological part, but its qualitative nature favors critical reflection and the dissemination of the debate necessary for reconstructing an Education that, while respecting the diversity, overcomes the adversities that insist on perpetuating themselves over black students and teachers at all levels of Brazilian education.

In congruence with the particularities of studies anchored in the state of the art, it is hoped that the issues presented here are thought from the perspective of intersectionality, because forms of oppression based on race, gender and class intersect and associate to the detriment of subaltern minorities. Thus, new problematizations involving black educators should be raised and disseminated in both the academic and social circles to stress and remove prejudiced paradigms.