Worse educational inequality between blacks and whites – 7/2/2023 – Education

Brazilian public elementary education has registered an improvement in learning indicators in recent years, but this has not occurred equally for all students. This movement was accompanied by a worsening of inequalities between black and white students, with regional aggravations.

Based on the results of Saeb, the federal evaluation of basic education, a study by Insper obtained by Sheet shows that, despite the slight improvement in overall student performance, black girls and boys are at an even more acute disadvantage.

The data take into account the results of Portuguese and Mathematics tests taken by students at the end of the initial years (1st to 5th year) and final years (6th to 9th) of elementary school. Results were analyzed between 2007 and 2019, the period before the pandemic.

In mathematics, for example, white boys had, in 2007, an advantage of 9.1 points over black girls (which considers who self-declared black or brown). That gap went to 13 points in 2017.

In the 9th year, this difference was 21.3 points in 2007 and increased to 23.4 in 2017, according to data from the study, which performed statistical weighting on the Saeb results to make safe comparisons.

Black students have fallen even further behind compared to whites and browns. At the end of elementary school, in the 9th grade, the average of black boys was 16.6 points below that of brown girls in 2007. This distance reached 20.5 points in 2017 —when compared with white girls, the gap increased from 28 to 32.4 points.

In mathematics, however, it is black girls who have the greatest disadvantages. In 2007, their average was 14.6 points lower than that of brown boys and 25.9 points below that of white boys. Ten years later, the Saeb results show a distance between black girls of 20.3 points for brown boys and 30.2 points for whites.

Researcher Michael França, author of the study alongside Gerrio Barbosa and Alysson Portella, says that the results are a reflection of social inequalities and discrimination.

“Educational policies cannot only look at performance averages, because that is leaving people behind. Society needs to converge on policies that look at equity, at fighting from a distance between the worst and the best”, he says, who coordinates the Racial Studies Center at Insper and is a columnist for Sheet.

França states that the evidence shows that schools with poorer students and with a greater predominance of blacks have greater pedagogical deficiencies. There are also indications that teachers reinforce racial stereotypes, always at a disadvantage for blacks.

The findings of this study indicate part of the problems of racial inequalities in education. They do not reflect inequalities between students from the same school, for example. In addition, dropping out and dropping out of school are problems that also affect black children and adolescents more strongly.

Zara Figueiredo, Secretary of Continuing Education, Youth and Adult Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion at the Ministry of Education, says that Brazil has never had principles of affirmative action to seek equality in basic education. The way social and pedagogical goods are distributed in basic education is essential at this point, she says.

“Society was scandalized by episodes like the one of racism experienced by the player Vinicius Junior, but why is nobody scandalized by these data that show that black boys have years of learning difference?”, she says. “We naturalize this facet of racism.”

At the head of the MEC sub-folder recreated by the Lula (PT) government to focus on these issues, Figueiredo says that the challenge of focusing on combating inequalities involves the rules for directing resources, designing evaluations (so that gaps are expressed), management allocation of teachers in priority schools and also training.

The secretary has taken part in meetings of different areas of MEC so that actions are structured around these principles. The portfolio should create, for example, equity lines for the main federal transfer mechanisms for educational networks.

“Schools and networks will need to present management actions to deal with inequalities”, she says.

MEC and Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) recreated the Abdias Nascimento Academic Development Program last week. The project includes R$ 600 million for affirmative actions in post-graduation and teacher training for basic education.

There is a focus on training for self-declared black, brown and indigenous students, students with disabilities, global developmental disorders and high abilities. Support is provided for projects with the themes of promoting racial equality, combating racism, disseminating knowledge of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture, intercultural education, accessibility and inclusion.

The Insper study also compared the regional gap between whites and blacks. Racial disparities are greater and have intensified in the South and Southeast regions.

In the North and Northeast regions, in 2007, blacks had scores very close to whites (sometimes even higher) in Portuguese and Mathematics, both in the early and late years of elementary school. But in the most recent results the situation has worsened.

In almost all states in the country, there was an improvement in average performance in Portuguese and mathematics between 2007 and 2019, but with widening inequality. In Ceará, whose municipalities have seen significant improvements in average learning rates in elementary school, “the differences in performance between blacks and whites in general evolved to benefit white students”, says the study.

The differences between blacks and whites are more pronounced in the 9th grade when looking at the differences in each state. In practically all units of the federation, white students appear with better results than blacks in 2019 (except in Alagoas and Acre, where there are similar scores in mathematics).

“It is worrying when blacks and browns, who make up the majority of the population, are at a disadvantage even when the grades of white students in the country are also very bad”, adds Michael França.