Curriculum and (de)coloniality: the decolonial potency in low IDEB schools

Abstract

This paper, resulting from a research project supported by the CNPq, intends to show, through the analysis of interviews with teachers who work in public schools with a low Basic Education Development Index (IDEB), that there is decolonial power in schools (dis)classified by large scale evaluations as having low quality. Firstly, we discuss the curriculum and coloniality. Secondly, we present the methodological incursions, with an emphasis on the selection of the subjects and the data collection instrument, articulating them with the theoretical conception, based on authors from the critical field, particularly, on authors of decoloniality. Then, the analysis of the field research follows. Finally, we present some provisional conclusions, since, like the authors mentioned in this paper, we understand that both knowledge and the curriculum are dynamic fields, therefore, there is no possibility of offering definitive and closed conclusions. Although in a tenuous way, the teachers’ speeches pointed out a view of denunciation by criticizing racism and the official curriculum, but they also showed a perspective of alternatives by including the students’ context and reality and seeing both as important knowledge to be included in the curriculum.