The education of international immigrants in Brazil’s research and public policy agenda – 06/27/2023 – Policies and Justice

Since the 2010s, Brazilian society has witnessed a considerable increase in the flow of international immigrants in its territory. Unlike what has been seen at other times in our history since the Proclamation of the Republic, which first stimulated European immigration, in addition to the arrival of Japanese and Lebanese Syrian immigrants, and then with a long period of emigration, currently, the migration scenario indicates a strong presence of subjects coming from countries of the global South, especially from bordering countries such as Venezuela, and from other regions of the American continent, such as Haiti.

The increase in migratory flows to Brazil had repercussions on various dimensions and social institutions, including basic education. According to data from the School Census released by INEP/MEC, in 2010, the total enrollment of immigrants was just over 40,000. At the end of the period, in 2019, there were more than 105,000 registered immigrants, representing an increase of more than 160%.

The greater presence of international immigrants in schools, however, did not guarantee that the theme would acquire a place in the agenda of knowledge production and educational policies in the same proportion. With regard to the production of knowledge, there is a scarcity of academic works in the country with a comprehensive look at the different nationalities present in our education system and that associate and use different research techniques, and there are few investigated groups. There is not even research on students from countries with a large representation in the enrollment data of the School Census, as is the case with Colombians and Peruvians.

Studies with different methods and analyzes of different nationalities, in a comparative way among themselves and in relation to Brazilians, added to the particular findings about each group, confer depth and promote readings that can collaborate with the construction of evidence for the promotion of educational policies for children. immigrants. But, for the research agenda to be consolidated and different techniques and methodological approaches to be made viable, it is necessary for the Brazilian State to invest and encourage records and research on the international immigrant population in the country’s schools. The absence of data is the first step towards making a group invisible and moving away from the guarantee of rights, while the inadequate collection of information on this group is a strong inducer of inequality in the provision of public policies. While the absence of registration generates the erasure of the group before the State, the wrong registration of an immigrant, the non-registration of their migrant status or even the erroneous indication of their country of origin in the databases is a way of denying the this subject to his own history.

A good start for the consolidation of international immigrants, whether on the research agenda or as an agenda for educational policies, is to improve existing data and expand the information collected. This can be done, for example, by reviewing items in the School Census on nationality, and by adequately training the school secretaries, who are responsible for filling them out. Certainly, INEP’s movement to expand access to confidential education data through the creation of centers in public universities in the country, in line with the Protected Data Access Service – Sedap, as recently occurred at UFMG, will collaborate and stimulate many researchers to dedicate themselves to the subject.

In addition to the few existing data, there is also no joint and collective effort so far by different federated entities and sectors of civil society to build guidelines or national regulations that support or support the school community in dealing with this new scenario. What we have seen in the last decade are initiatives by some municipal and state governments that, in view of the increased flow of immigrants in their schools, have developed pedagogical resources to support the process of educational inclusion of immigrants.

So that immigrants are not excluded from the process of rebuilding education that we are experiencing, it is necessary for them to be present in research agendas and public policy agendas. This presence will be important not only to guarantee the right to education for the different nationalities that migrate to Brazil, but to support Brazilian teachers, principals and colleagues in welcoming and guiding students in their schooling process.

The editor, Michael França, asks each participant of the space “Politics and Justice” of the Sheet suggest a song to the readers. In this text, the one chosen by Zakia Ismail was Movimiento, by Jorge Drexler.

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