RICSRE Seminar Series, Petronilha Beatriz Gonçalves e Silva

"Cultural Pluralism, Alterity, and Equity - Affirmative Action's Challenges”

This talk will focus on Brazilian experiences in implementing affirmative action  policies in higher education. It will discuss the role of the Black Movement, the Indigenous People's  Movement, the movement led by students and scholars, as well as strategies employed by the opposition. It will highlight  the challenges faced in order to recognize and include the cultural pluralism of students in activities and curricula, to “surmount” the preponderance of a unique cultural norm, to rewrite knowledge as “pluriversal”, to reinvent  models of teaching, to manage non-hierarchical co-existence among different human groups, and to improve equity.  

Petronilha Beatriz Gonçalves e Silva is a full professor, and now professor emerita, in Education and Racial-Ethnic Relations at the Center of Education and Human Sciences at the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil. Through a selection process within the Brazilian Black Movement, Professor e Silva was appointed to the National Council of Education from 2002 to 2006. During this time she played a central role in writing The National Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Racial-Ethnic Relations and The Teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian History and Culture, which have since been implemented at all educational levels in Brazil. Professor e Silva’s many contributions to education were recognized in 2011 when she received Brazil’s Presidential National Order of Merit. Professor e Silva began her academic career in 1979 at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul where she completed a master’s degree in Education and then went on to complete a doctorate in the Human Sciences and Education in 1987. During her graduate studies, she attended UNESCO’s International Educational Planning Institute in Paris, France. Professor e Silva’s scholarship, which includes publications in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, addresses themes related to African and Afro-Brazilian culture and history, the contributions of the Black Movement to the Brazilian educational system, as well as educational policy and ethnic-racial relationships.