Crianças kaiowá e guarani em uma escola urbana da cidade de Dourados/MS

Abstract

In Dourados city, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, there are an indigenous population that declares itself belonging to the Guarani, Kaiowá and Terena ethnic groups. These ethnic groups live in the Indigenous Reservation of Dourados, in the retaken areas and also in the urban area of the city. Historically, intense conflicts between non-indigenous and indigenous people have been built in the local social context and these conflicts are also reflected in the educational context. Acting as an education professional in urban schools in the Municipal Education Network, it was possible to realize that the cultural difference of indigenous students represents reasons for professional concerns for managers and teachers and for interpersonal conflicts for indigenous and non-indigenous students. In this context, we propose an ethnographic investigation on the teaching and learning process of Guarani and Kaiowá children, inserted in an urban school, whose primary objective was to understand whether the cultural difference of these children represents implications for their schooling process or not. From the participant observation in the school routine, we also try to reflect on the pedagogical practices of the teachers; understand the social interaction of indigenous children with the internal school community; highlight the logic of interculturality present in school life and understand the reasons that lead indigenous families to enroll their children in non-indigenous schools. According to results of research, different pedagogical and socio-cultural factors became evident that represent implications for the schooling process of indigenous children: living conditions of students in the villages, difficulties they faced in getting to school, lack of understanding of the Portuguese language, lack of social interaction in classrooms, methodologies and assessment tools used by teachers, among others.