African and Indigenous games and activities: a pilot study on their legitimacy and complexity in Brazilian physical education teaching

ABSTRACT

Although the teaching of African-Brazilian and Indigenous history and culture is mandatory in primary and secondary schools, there has been a lack of proper contextualizing in PETE programs [Corsino, L. N., & Conceição, W. L. (Eds.). (2016). Educação física escolar e relações étnico-raciais: Subsídios para a implementação das leis 10.639-03 e 11.645-08 [School physical education and ethnic-racial relations: Subsidies for the implementation of laws 10.639-03 and 11.645-08]. CRV, v. 11]. There is also a need to study how the recognition of African-Brazilian and Indigenous ethnic-racial issues in primary and secondary physical education is mandated by the law. The purpose of this research – framed as a pilot study – is to address the invisibility of African-Brazilian and Indigenous history and culture in schools. The objective is to analyze both the teachers’ knowledge and the law application in physical education classes concerning African and Indigenous games and activities. We have addressed the invisibility of Black and Indigenous people in Brazil, connections to the African diasporas and Indigenous cultures, ethnic-racial inequalities in physical education, and the African-Brazilian and Indigenous complexities as challenges for PETE. The research method is qualitatively oriented and descriptive. Data was generated from an online questionnaire responded to by physical education teachers who work in primary schools. Findings suggest that there is a lack of discussion on ethnic-racial issues in PETE or in permanent teacher education programs. Despite the law, there is a discrepancy in its application in Brazilian education. Physical education opens space to reflect upon the African-Brazilian and Indigenous cultures in the schools. Even teachers who do not teach ethnic-racial issues at their schools affirm the importance to teach. In conclusion, it is necessary to decolonize the curriculum, emphasizing the ethnic-racial complexity in PETE. Transform pedagogies and prompt the construction of new paths for social justice practices do require a more culturally diverse physical education curriculum.

KEYWORDS:

• physical education teacher education (PETE)
• ethnic-racial issues
• school physical education
• educational laws
• African and Indigenous games and activities

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions throughout the review process, as well as to thank Alan Ovens and Luiz Sanches Neto for their critical readings of our drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The Brazilian demographic census accounts Black, Brownish (Pardo in Portuguese), Indigenous, Yellow and White to address race or ethnicity. Although more than 50% of the country population self-declares as Black or Pardo, recognizing African ancestry, the term Black – Preto or Preta in Portuguese – has been often considered naive because of its straight relation to the color of skin, while the term Negro or Negra has been historically used by the United Brazilian Black Movements as revolutionary and for self-affirmation since the early 1830s (Gonçalves, 2018); then, it is not considered derogatory as in other countries. For instance, the Black Panthers Party is known in Brazil since the 1960s as the Panteras Negras instead of Panteras Pretas. Currently, the critical sense of Negro is still stronger than Black in Brazil, but its meaning is being revised to enhance its correspondence to the global fights against racism, sexism and to foster educative processes (Gomes, 2017; Venâncio & Nóbrega, 2020). In this article we refer to the people as Black and to the cultural heritage and diasporic idiosyncrasies as African-Brazilian.

2 The Brazilian demographic census accounts as Indigenous the people who self-declare as well as the people who live in specific Indigenous communities and speak the correspondent languages of those communities. The Indigenous lands – where the communities live – correspond to previously established perimeters for each ethnicity (Carneiro Filho & Souza, 2009). There are 305 Indigenous ethnicities living in Brazilian urban and rural areas – and in isolated regions – and more than 180 languages amidst them (Azevedo, 2011). At least seven populations are seriously threatened of extinction because there are only 5 to 40 individuals of those correspondent ethnicities (Ricardo & Ricardo, 2017).

3 The Quilombolas are inhabitants of the Quilombos, which are settlements in distant areas – usually deep locations into the forests – that inslaved Black peoples created to resist collaboratively and live organically (Santos, 2015). The Quilombo is a very important heritage of the African-Brazilian diasporic experience and it is going to be explained in more detail in the following section. Brazil has specific educational guidelines for Quilombolas and Indigenous peoples.

4 No demographic data has been collected during the two phases to guarantee teachers’ anonymity; therefore, this research is framed as a pilot study. Besides, there is not any available demographic data about all teachers in the state of Ceará, which the municipality of Fortaleza is part of.

5 The Saci’s race is so-called because the participants run randomly on one leg, referring to a Black young male character from Brazilian folklore who only had one leg. Josh’s slaves are a game named after a song. It is a popular Brazilian game in which participants sit in a circle and pass on objects back and forth through musical harmony.