Políticas públicas da educação escolar indígena: histórias e vivências dos Tupinambá de Olivença – Bahia

Abstract

The present research work explains and discusses the public policies of the State of Bahia in relation to indigenous communities, evaluating how and if they are implemented. After presenting the recent trajectory of mobilizations by indigenous communities in favor of guaranteeing their rights, he focuses particularly on the Tupinambá of Olivença, Ilhéus, and on the installation and operation of schools in their villages. We then analyzed, in the light of the relevant legislation, how the guidelines on an education that is bilingual and multicultural for indigenous peoples meet with the practice of schools in the villages. The visits to the villages, observations, interviews and informal conversations were fundamental for the investigation, although it is also based on historiographical contributions and written sources, in a qualitative research strategy that was aimed especially at two schools: Escola Estadual Indígena Tupinambá of Abaete and the Tupinambá Indigenous State College of Acuípe de Baixo. This procedure made it possible to examine the subject in order to cross-check the evidence found with the data collected in Laws, Decrees, Resolutions, Opinions and Ordinances. In addition to direct observation of the schools, 11 (eleven) people related to indigenous school education in the State of Bahia were interviewed, including a state coordinator of indigenous education, teachers, directors, former directors, and employees of both schools. Parallel to public documents on policies for indigenous education, we studied a group of authors who dealt with themes that helped to support our analyses, especially around themes such as the (re)emergence of indigenous peoples ( Pacheco de Oliveira, 1998, 2004 ; Orço & Costa, 2014; Bartolomé, 2006); the current struggles of indigenous peoples (Magalhães, 2010; Aroucha Jimenes 2019; Marcis, 2004); indigenous education and indigenous school education (Maher, 2006; Candau, 2000, Grupioni, 2001). We conclude that the Tupinambá de Olivença understand the need for access to quality school education that must dialogue with their traditional forms of education. And that, although there have been advances in this direction, which are directly related to the mobilization of the Tupinambá themselves, in the wake of the strengthening of the indigenous movement observed from the last decades of the last century, there are several points in which the guaranteed rights do not become effective in practice.