More than half of teachers (54% of the total) have witnessed cases of racism involving their students in the classroom. This is shown by an unprecedented survey by the Itaú Foundation Observatory, in partnership with Equidade.Info, carried out with public and private educational establishments in Brazil.
According to the survey, this percentage increases among elementary school II teachers (from 6th to 9th grade), reaching 67%. Among elementary school I teachers (between 1st and 5th grade) the rate is 48%. Among high school teachers, the rate is 47%.
“Teachers realize that there are indeed situations of racism among students. But this perception varies between white and black teachers. Among black teachers, it corresponds to 56%, while among white teachers it is 48%. This perception also changes among students. In this case, we asked them if they feel respected for their curly hair, hairstyle or skin color. And we saw that 13% of black students disagreed, but among white students, the rate is 8%,” said Esmeralda Macana, coordinator of the Itaú Foundation Observatory.
The research was conducted in two ways. One of them analyzed the school climate and was carried out in 144 schools, interviewing 2,706 students, 384 teachers and 235 administrators between March and April of this year. The other part of the study analyzed the fight against racism, with data collected between April and May of 2024 in 160 schools, 2,889 students, 373 teachers and 222 administrators. “We aim to understand how students feel in their daily school life and how this is characterized in the perception of themselves, teachers and school administrators”, explained Esmeralda.
School climate
In the survey on school climate, the study showed that students’ feeling of being welcomed in schools decreases as they progress through the stages of education. In the early years of elementary school (between 1st and 5th grade), for example, the welcoming rate reaches 86%. In the final stages of elementary school (between 6th and 9th grade), this feeling drops to 77%. When analyzing high school students, the percentage increases to 72%.
“The feeling of being welcomed by students decreases as they progress through the school years. For example, in the case of the initial years, this perception is 86%,” said Esmeralda, in an interview with Agência Brasil.
“This has to do with several issues and challenges of education itself during a transitional period. These are children who will go through adolescence, in which there may be a change of school and also a change in the way the learning process takes place, with the transition to multiple teachers. So, students end up facing more challenges in this welcoming phase because they are students who may be in new schools, with specialist teachers, with different subjects and changes in classmates, in addition to changes in their own physical development that are natural in adolescence,” he added.
The research also revealed that this feeling of acceptance is greater among white students. Around 84% of white students say they feel welcomed, while this figure drops to 78% among black students.
There is also a difference in perception regarding the welcome among students, teachers and administrators. Among teachers, 92% said that students feel welcomed at school, a difference of 11 points compared to the same question asked to students (81%). Among administrators, the percentage rises to 93%.
Confronting racism
The second section, on combating racism, indicated that seven out of ten students (70%) agree that black students are respected in schools in relation to their phenotype. This perception, however, is different between white and black students: among the former, 8% disagree with what was announced, while for black students, the percentage is 13%.
Another piece of data presented by the study shows that 21% of white teachers said they did not know what to do to deal with racism in schools. Among black teachers, the figure drops to 9%.
On average, 75% of teachers said that their school has procedures in place to deal with cases of racism. “Teachers need to be trained to identify these situations [de racismo]”, said the coordinator.
However, Esmeralda emphasized that confronting racism is not just a task for teachers. For her, only structural actions that involve the entire education system, bringing together the community, staff and students’ families, can overcome the problem. “When children feel more valued for their identity, their territory and their culture, they will feel more welcomed,” she argued.
“Schools need to promote a positive school climate. This can be done in many ways, including art and culture, which can help in this promotion. There is also a need for a school curriculum that is more enriched with art and culture to combat racism. There is law 10.639, which has been in place for 20 years, and which requires the teaching of ethnic-racial relations and Afro-Brazilian history, which needs to be implemented. This implies having appropriate teaching materials that include references to black representations,” he added.
According to her, all these actions are important not only to combat racism, but also to promote a positive climate, preventing violence and bullying.
This content was originally published in More than 50% of teachers have witnessed racism among students on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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