ABSTRACT
Understanding art as expression of what humans think, feel, and act on, according to various
ways of living life, from painting, music, theater, dance, and all forms of expression that come
from culture and its practices, particularly in the school – this institutional and self-regulated
space, with specific organized characteristics, that treats a student as not more than just a
student who needs knowledge, thus delineating correlate relationship modes – this
dissertation discusses "Law 10.639/03 and the Teaching of Arts in Initial Grades: Affirmative
Action Policies and Racist Folklorization". It analyses the implementation of the legal
obligation to teach Afro-Brazilian and African Culture in schools, issued in 2003, particularly
in regard to art teaching in public schools in given a municipality in the State of Paraná. In
this work the author understands that the theorization deriving from the diagnosis of this
implementation may, dialectically, lead to some possible forms of transforming reality and
somehow lead to more respect toward cultural differences, their learning, and its perception
as wealth from human groups. Thus, the ideas and facts on how the subjects that
participated in this investigation – interacting in ways as to express their feelings – bring to
the surface the value of reflecting on subjectivity as a critical component of the importance of
the investigation. The researcher himself is part of the research in his effort to try to answer:
"How did I become who I am?" So, in identifying himself with his own experience of reality,
the researcher, by interacting with the reality (the field) observed and the theory (science),
strengthens his focus and definitely establishes a knowledge-building process, expanding a
view of the world that is too often only slightly perceived by researchers. This dissertation
addresses: (a) Law 10.639/03 that makes Teaching Afro-Brazilian and African History and
Culture in schools obligatory, which in the opinion of several scholars, starting with the
reporter of this process, Professor Beatriz Petronilha Silva, should become an important
dialog, a contribution of the School to the development of anti-racist and anti-prejudice
pedagogy; and (b) the way the law has been implemented, after seven years in effect, in
initial grades at municipal schools, by answering the following questions: 1) how the Law is
being implemented, in the opinion of teachers of Art in public schools in a municipality of
Paraná, and 2) how it contributes to an anti-racist pedagogy as a result of the way it is being
implemented, as part of the Arts discipline. The issue raised here is: analysis of what is and
what is not being taught in schools as a consequence of the Law, and how this is taking
place, in the opinion of the teachers responsible for this implementation. From the discursive
perspective of the answers obtained during recorded conversations (for analysis purposes), it
was inferred that the empirical data obtained in this survey allow the defense of the following
thesis: the implementation of the law, as it is taking place – part of the Arts discipline taught
in initial grades in schools in the municipality analyzed – may be characterized as "racist
Folklorization", that is reaffirming prejudice instead of fighting it as proposed by Affirmative
Action policies. This argument leads back to its cause – sometimes hidden, sometimes open
– the total ignorance, in both awareness and attitude, about Blacks and their culture, as well
as the derogatory naturalization, intentional or not, of their cultural features and appearance
in schools. The concern that originated the research, as far as the author of the work is
concerned, is viscerally traversed by the life history of someone who, once a black orphan
and poor person, becomes himself an iconic representation of a population of black children
victimized by the very prejudice and discrimination that Law 10.639/03 purports to defend.
Key words: Affirmative Action Policies. Law 10.639/03. Arts Teaching. Racist Folklorization.