What we may learn on indigenous peoples in the printed notes of history/secondary school within the Teaching System Ser

Abstract

The expansion of school textbooks in Brazil and the production of new items for schools trigger the need for  a critical analysis of information, images and contents contained within. Current essay discusses representations of indigenous peoples within the teaching system SER published and commercialized by the Abril publishing house for secondary school teachers of History. In spite of overt changes in the texts, contrastingly to the old didactic handbooks, the historical narrative is still highly Eurocentric. On the one hand, semantic and stereotyped simplifications are perceived when cultures and life styles of indigenes are provided. This is coupled with a naturalization of the subordinate social level of the indigenes and their cultures with regard to the European life style. On the other hand, publications underscore episodes that mark indigenous resistance and their current struggle for ancestral land recovery and the conquest of specific rights.