Arquivo da tag: Educação

Opinion | All Brains Are the Same Color (New York Times)

21/09/2023UncategorizedCérebro, Discriminação, Educação, neurociências, Racismo, Racismo e educação, Racismo na ciência, Teste de QIrenzotaddei

Richard E. Nisbett – Op-Ed Contributor

Dec. 9, 2007

JAMES WATSON, the 1962 Nobel laureate, recently asserted that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” and its citizens because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really.”

Dr. Watson’s remarks created a huge stir because they implied that blacks were genetically inferior to whites, and the controversy resulted in his resignation as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. But was he right? Is there a genetic difference between blacks and whites that condemns blacks in perpetuity to be less intelligent?

The first notable public airing of the scientific question came in a 1969 article in The Harvard Educational Review by Arthur Jensen, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jensen maintained that a 15-point difference in I.Q. between blacks and whites was mostly due to a genetic difference between the races that could never be erased. But his argument gave a misleading account of the evidence. And others who later made the same argument Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in “The Bell Curve,” in 1994, for example, and just recently, William Saletan in a series of articles on Slate have made the same mistake.

In fact, the evidence heavily favors the view that race differences in I.Q. are environmental in origin, not genetic.

The hereditarians begin with the assertion that 60 percent to 80 percent of variation in I.Q. is genetically determined. However, most estimates of heritability have been based almost exclusively on studies of middle-class groups. For the poor, a group that includes a substantial proportion of minorities, heritability of I.Q. is very low, in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, according to recent research by Eric Turkheimer at the University of Virginia. This means that for the poor, improvements in environment have great potential to bring about increases in I.Q.

In any case, the degree of heritability of a characteristic tells us nothing about how much the environment can affect it. Even when a trait is highly heritable (think of the height of corn plants), modifiability can also be great (think of the difference growing conditions can make).

Nearly all the evidence suggesting a genetic basis for the I.Q. differential is indirect. There is, for example, the evidence that brain size is correlated with intelligence, and that blacks have smaller brains than whites. But the brain size difference between men and women is substantially greater than that between blacks and whites, yet men and women score the same, on average, on I.Q. tests. Likewise, a group of people in a community in Ecuador have a genetic anomaly that produces extremely small head sizes and hence brain sizes. Yet their intelligence is as high as that of their unaffected relatives.

Why rely on such misleading and indirect findings when we have much more direct evidence about the basis for the I.Q. gap? About 25 percent of the genes in the American black population are European, meaning that the genes of any individual can range from 100 percent African to mostly European. If European intelligence genes are superior, then blacks who have relatively more European genes ought to have higher I.Q.’s than those who have more African genes. But it turns out that skin color and “negroidness” of features both measures of the degree of a black person’s European ancestry are only weakly associated with I.Q. (even though we might well expect a moderately high association due to the social advantages of such features).

During World War II, both black and white American soldiers fathered children with German women. Thus some of these children had 100 percent European heritage and some had substantial African heritage. Tested in later childhood, the German children of the white fathers were found to have an average I.Q. of 97, and those of the black fathers had an average of 96.5, a trivial difference.

If European genes conferred an advantage, we would expect that the smartest blacks would have substantial European heritage. But when a group of investigators sought out the very brightest black children in the Chicago school system and asked them about the race of their parents and grandparents, these children were found to have no greater degree of European ancestry than blacks in the population at large.

Most tellingly, blood-typing tests have been used to assess the degree to which black individuals have European genes. The blood group assays show no association between degree of European heritage and I.Q. Similarly, the blood groups most closely associated with high intellectual performance among blacks are no more European in origin than other blood groups.

The closest thing to direct evidence that the hereditarians have is a study from the 1970s showing that black children who had been adopted by white parents had lower I.Q.’s than those of mixed-race children adopted by white parents. But, as the researchers acknowledged, the study had many flaws; for instance, the black children had been adopted at a substantially later age than the mixed-race children, and later age at adoption is associated with lower I.Q.

A superior adoption study and one not discussed by the hereditarians was carried out at Arizona State University by the psychologist Elsie Moore, who looked at black and mixed-race children adopted by middle-class families, either black or white, and found no difference in I.Q. between the black and mixed-race children. Most telling is Dr. Moore’s finding that children adopted by white families had I.Q.’s 13 points higher than those of children adopted by black families. The environments that even middle-class black children grow up in are not as favorable for the development of I.Q. as those of middle-class whites.

Important recent psychological research helps to pinpoint just what factors shape differences in I.Q. scores. Joseph Fagan of Case Western Reserve University and Cynthia Holland of Cuyahoga Community College tested blacks and whites on their knowledge of, and their ability to learn and reason with, words and concepts. The whites had substantially more knowledge of the various words and concepts, but when participants were tested on their ability to learn new words, either from dictionary definitions or by learning their meaning in context, the blacks did just as well as the whites.

Whites showed better comprehension of sayings, better ability to recognize similarities and better facility with analogies when solutions required knowledge of words and concepts that were more likely to be known to whites than to blacks. But when these kinds of reasoning were tested with words and concepts known equally well to blacks and whites, there were no differences. Within each race, prior knowledge predicted learning and reasoning, but between the races it was prior knowledge only that differed.

What do we know about the effects of environment?

That environment can markedly influence I.Q. is demonstrated by the so-called Flynn Effect. James Flynn, a philosopher and I.Q. researcher in New Zealand, has established that in the Western world as a whole, I.Q. increased markedly from 1947 to 2002. In the United States alone, it went up by 18 points. Our genes could not have changed enough over such a brief period to account for the shift; it must have been the result of powerful social factors. And if such factors could produce changes over time for the population as a whole, they could also produce big differences between subpopulations at any given time.

In fact, we know that the I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped to 9.5 points from 15 points in the last 30 years a period that was more favorable for blacks in many ways than the preceding era. Black progress on the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows equivalent gains. Reading and math improvement has been modest for whites but substantial for blacks.

Most important, we know that interventions at every age from infancy to college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic achievement, sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time. This mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as a society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to develop their minds.

Richard E. Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, is the author of “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why.”

Affirmative Action Shaped Their Lives. Now, They Reckon With Its Legacy. (NY Times)

23/06/2023UncategorizedAções afirmativas, Educação, EUA, Racismo, Racismo estruturalrenzotaddei

nytimes.com

Amy Harmon

June 21, 2023

How It Feels to Have Your Life Changed By Affirmative Action

Black and Hispanic college graduates, whose lives were directly shaped by race-conscious college admissions, have complicated thoughts about the expected Supreme Court decision.

Granderson Hale stands looking out, wearing a blue suit and cowboy hat. — As a high school student in Philadelphia, Granderson Hale was part of the first large cohort of graduates to be shaped by race-conscious admissions.Credit: Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times

As a top student at his Philadelphia high school in 1968, Granderson Hale knew he stood a decent chance of admission at one of the historically Black colleges that typically sent recruiters to the school, where nearly all of the 2,700 students were Black.

He had pinned his hopes on Lincoln or Morgan or Cheney. Howard University would be a stretch.

So when his guidance counselor summoned him because “someone from Brown is coming,” Mr. Hale recalls, the Ivy League school did not register.

“Brown?” Mr. Hale remembered thinking. “Brown who? Charlie Brown?”

Mr. Hale, who ended up accepting a full academic scholarship to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, could not have known then that he would be part of the first large cohort of high-school graduates to be shaped by race-conscious admissions. Or that the practice would become a lightning rod for decades-long debates about racial justice, meritocracy and educational inequities.

Brown University was not the only college that fall to recruit for the first time from schools with high concentrations of Black students.

In the spring of 1969, one year after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Yale enrolled a record 96 Black students, according to the historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was one of them.

The expectation that the U.S. Supreme Court will soon end or limit race-conscious admissions in cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina has elicited an array of partisan reactions: dismay from some liberals who say that would represent a step backward for the country; hope from others that class-conscious admissions could make up for the loss, while easing racial tensions; and relief from conservatives, who believe that race-conscious admissions is unconstitutional.

But for many of the Black, Hispanic and Native Americans whose lives were shaped by affirmative action, this moment has prompted a more personal reckoning with its complicated legacy. In more than two dozen interviews with The New York Times, those who went to elite schools, where their race may or may not have given them an edge, expressed a swirl of emotions.

A few concluded that the downsides of race-conscious admissions outweighed the benefits. Some spoke of carrying an extra layer of impostor syndrome. Many more grieved the closing of a path that led to rewarding careers and the building of wealth.

Their experience may inform the present, as Americans continue to debate how to define — and align — the principles of fairness and merit, as well as address enduring racial disparities without deepening racial divisions. At least in the immediate future, Black and Hispanic enrollment is expected to plunge.

Mr. Hale, 71, can sympathize with those who want the end of race-conscious admissions. He credits Wesleyan with paving the way to an M.B.A. from the Wharton School and a more comfortable life. But he would prefer to see investments in early education for Black and Hispanic students, who often attend low-performing K-12 schools.

He said he had seen enough of how Black professionals were regarded by their white counterparts to feel that race-conscious admissions had not worked to their overall benefit. “People don’t respect you if they have to let you in,” he said.

That view is not widely shared by Black adults with a bachelor’s degree, who supported the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions by more than a 2-to-1 margin in a recent poll by the Pew Research Center.

Andrew Brennen, 27, is entering Columbia Law School this fall, perhaps the last class shaped by race-conscious admissions. He has no doubt that given his test scores and grades, being Black played a role in his admission — for which he is unapologetic. Like Mr. Hale, he sees K-12 education as a key to racial justice, and has accepted a scholarship from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund that commits him to eight years of practicing civil rights law in the South after graduation.

“As someone who is seeking to create the most change possible for Black students in Kentucky,’’ he said, “I sought the best education I could.”

Mr. Brennen’s family was upper-middle class; his father was a dean at the University of Kentucky law school. But he also grew up in small southern towns, his the only Black family in predominantly white neighborhoods.

As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he watched protesters fight to keep a Confederate monument on campus and felt guilt, as one of two Black students in a freshman writing class, for “not adequately defending my race” when the topic of affirmative action arose.

Any self-doubt he and others like him feel on elite campuses, he said, stems from a sense of isolation, lack of institutional support and routine displays of racism, not “because our SAT scores aren’t as high as our white peers.’’

Small in Numbers, but Mighty

Education is often invoked as the key to equality, but in many ways the numbers tell a story not of progress, but of falling behind.

Almost seven decades after Brown v. Board of Education, more than half of the nation’s K-12 students are enrolled in districts where students are either more than 75 percent white or more than 75 percent nonwhite, according to a recent report by EdBuild, a nonpartisan education group.

School districts serving mostly white students receive $2,200 more in government funding per student, the authors found, than those that serve mostly nonwhite students.

And the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gold-standard federal exam, shows deep and persistent gaps by race.

By high school, those differences have hardened: 58 percent of Asian American test-takers and 31 percent of white test-takers scored a 1200 or higher on the SAT in 2022, according to the College Board, which runs the exam. For Hispanic and Black students, those numbers were 12 percent and 8 percent.

For supporters, the persistent inequities are proof that race-conscious affirmative action is still needed — and the reason those students come into elite institutions behind.

Luis Acosta, who grew up in rural North Carolina as the son of Mexican immigrants, said he considered dropping out in his first year as an undergraduate at the state’s flagship university at Chapel Hill.

“I don’t know if I can do it here, maybe I should go somewhere else,’’ he recalled thinking. Encouragement from his chemistry professor helped him stick it out. He is now in his fourth year of medical school, applying for residencies in pediatrics.

Social scientists also credit race-conscious admissions with pushing back some of the compounding inequality.

About 100 highly selective colleges are thought to practice race-conscious admissions, and they confer degrees on about 10,000 to 15,000 Black and Hispanic students each year whom they might not have otherwise accepted, according to a rough estimate by Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford University.

That represents about 1 percent of all students in four-year colleges, and about 2 percent of all Black, Hispanic or Native American students in four-year colleges.

Though small in number, these students have a big effect, Dr. Reardon said, because of the “outsize role in social, economic and political decisions that graduates from the most selective schools play.’’

Consider Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a graduate of Princeton and Yale and the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court, who has described herself as a “perfect affirmative action baby.’’

Or former President Barack Obama, a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law School, where in 1990 he wrote that he was “someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career.”

They are not the only beneficiaries to leave an imprint.

By the early 1990s, affirmative action helped boost the percentage of Black Americans in medical school by a factor of four, according to a 2000 study by economists at Georgetown University and Michigan State — producing doctors who chose more often than their white peers to serve communities with high concentrations of Black and Hispanic residents.

Zachary Bleemer, a Yale economist, studied applicants to the University of California before and after the state banned race-conscious admissions in 1996.

He found that before the ban, Black and Hispanic state residents were more likely to attend the system’s most selective schools and, in the decades after graduating, earn $100,000 or more than those who applied after the ban.

“If the institutions I graduated from did not have the freedom to say, ‘I’m going to give him a shot,’ there’s no way I’m talking to you as a Harvard professor right now,’’ said Anthony Jack, 38, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Jack graduated from Amherst College, where tuition cost one and a half times his mother’s annual pay.

Carl Phillips entered Harvard in 1977 with what he called “respectable, but not the highest SAT scores,” and the second-guessing of white students at his Cape Cod, Mass., public high school, who suggested that he was admitted because he was Black.

At his work-study job cleaning dormitory bathrooms, the divisions of class and race were palpable. “You’re marching across Harvard Yard with a bucket,” he recalled, “and then there are people wearing tweed jackets and enjoying their leisure.”

“On one hand, I was grateful to have been accepted,” he said. “On the other hand, I felt as if I had to prove that I was worthy of being let in.”

But he took particular satisfaction in going on to teach high school Latin. “There are not many Black people who do that,” he noted. And then, when he taught at the university level, he saw that he could inspire confidence in Black and gay students, who often told him that “they had never had a professor who looked like me.” This year, he won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

“It’s hard to maybe measure the exact ways in which affirmative action helps,” said Mr. Phillips, now a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “But you can see this chain. One person is let in, that person then goes on to have a position where they can let other people in.”

Stigma and Self-Doubt

In 2012, when news got around Patsy Zeigler’s office that her younger daughter had been accepted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a white colleague asked her, “How did that happen?”

There was a kid in her church, the colleague explained — a white kid, she meant — who did not get in. And that student, the colleague added, was “really smart.”

Mrs. Zeigler felt her hackles rise. Should she mention that her daughter, Star Wingate-Bey, earned a near-perfect score on the verbal portion of her SAT? Should she cite Star’s leadership in the honors society? Her offers from other prestigious colleges?

“Really smart?” she recalls thinking. “What is she saying about Star?”

This is not an uncommon experience for Black students and their families at elite schools.

That collective stigma, affirmative action critics have said, undermines the accomplishments of Black people in America.

ImageSupporters of affirmative action demonstrated in Washington last October, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments.Credit…Shuran Huang for The New York Times

“Do you know what reinforces the idea that they’re inferior?” Ward Connerly, a Black businessman in California and longtime opponent of affirmative action, has said of Black students. “Being told they need a preference to succeed.”

But virtually no elite college makes admissions decisions entirely on test scores or grades. The list of students with preference is long: recruited athletes, children of alumni, donors and faculty and, at Harvard, a special “dean’s list’’ of prominent people. About 43 percent of white admitted students at the university fell into those categories, according to admissions data made public during the lawsuit.

Dr. Richard V. Sims, 75, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, said some of his classmates were children of alumni and “were not outstanding students by any means.”

He added, “They used that to get themselves into Harvard, so why should I feel ill at ease for having affirmative action contribute to my admission?”

Jennifer J. Manly, a neuropsychologist at Columbia and a 1991 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, said that she always felt confident that she was a qualified student, despite her belief that she had been given an advantage in admission.

“I never felt guilty about that, because I was going to have to prove myself,” said Dr. Manly, who studies Alzheimer’s disease among Black and Hispanic Americans.

The affirmative action debate, though, can overshadow the debate over who is privileged — and why, according to Dr. Jack of Harvard.

“People are quick to label any success of a Black person, a Latino person, a Native person, as a consequence of affirmative action while ignoring the plethora of policies that gave them a leg up,” he said.

A Glimpse of the Future

In the fall of 2018, a Berkeley student told Kyra Abrams that she must have been admitted because she was Black.

Ms. Abrams thought it was a not-funny joke. After all, race-conscious admissions had been banned at California’s public universities for more than two decades.

But Berkeley came with its own challenges. Black students, she said, referred to themselves as “the 1.9 percent,” their share of the student population, down from the low-double digits in the years before the ban.

Their rarity, she figured, explained why students distributing fliers on the campus hub, Sproul Plaza, ignored her, assuming she was not an actual student, an experience known as “Sprouling while Black.”

She also found herself left out of the competitive study clubs in her computer science class. “They don’t think Black students are smart enough to be in their clubs,” she said.

Ms. Abrams, of San Pablo, Calif., was the first in her family to graduate from college. She took the SAT three times, managing to eke out a decent combined score. In 2020, she campaigned for Proposition 16, the failed state referendum that would have reinstated race-conscious college admissions.

After graduating last spring, Ms. Abrams enrolled in a Ph.D. program in informatics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She wondered if the Supreme Court’s impending decision could mean that life for Black and Hispanic students at other elite schools might now resemble her Berkeley experience.

If so, it will be hard, she wants to tell them. “You just feel isolated,” she said.

The Ph.D program is scary, too, but she is excited to work on bias in government data programs.

“Nothing is linear,” she said. “There are no lights to follow. You get to carve your own path.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Amy Harmon is a national correspondent, covering the intersection of science and society. She has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for her series “The DNA Age”, and as part of a team for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.” @amy_harmon • Facebook

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Inside the Lives Changed by Affirmative Action. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Opinião – Luiz Augusto Campos e Márcia Lima: Recomendações para a política de cotas (Folha de S.Paulo)

20/11/2022UncategorizedAções afirmativas, Antirracismo, Educação, Lei de cotas, Racismo, Racismo estruturalrenzotaddei

www1.folha.uol.com.br

Ações afirmativas devem ir além da graduação

Luiz Augusto Campos e Márcia Lima

20 de novembro de 2022

Em 2022, comemoramos 20 anos da implementação das cotas sociais e raciais na Uerj e dez anos da lei federal 12.711/12. As cotas mudaram a cara do ensino superior e o debate acerca de nossas desigualdades.

Com o objetivo de produzir um balanço de seus impactos e subsidiar cientificamente a revisão da lei federal, criamos o Consórcio de Acompanhamento das Ações Afirmativas (CAA). O CAA analisou dados de mais de 7 universidades federais e estaduais, tendo publicado mais de 30 textos na academia e na imprensa sobre o tema.

A despeito de problemas pontuais, as cotas têm um saldo muito positivo. O percentual de jovens pretos, pardos e indígenas pulou de 31% em 2002 para 52% das matrículas em 2021. No mesmo período, o percentual de estudantes de baixa renda saiu de 19% para 52%. Os avanços maiores se deram nos cursos mais concorridos, e quase todas as pesquisas sobre o tema mostram que os cotistas têm desempenho muito similar aos não cotistas. Mais de 70% das pesquisas acadêmicas sobre as cotas as consideram uma política bem-sucedida.

Por tudo isso, o CAA recomenda às forças políticas, eleitas em outubro, a manutenção e expansão do sistema existente, que combina critérios socioeconômicos —para estudantes de escola pública e baixa renda— com cotas raciais. No entanto, é necessário a criação de programas específicos, sensíveis às especificidades das populações indígenas, quilombolas e das pessoas com deficiência. Tendo em vista que pretos e pardos em processo de ascensão social também são vítimas de racismo, apoiamos a criação de subcotas complementares para eles, independentemente da origem escolar.

Outra recomendação é a revisão da faixa de renda, presente na lei federal. O patamar de 1,5 salário mínimo familiar per capita não favorece os mais pobres. Isso vale para a implementação de um sistema de concorrência simultânea, que permita a potenciais cotistas disputarem, ao mesmo tempo, as vagas no sistema de ampla concorrência, fazendo com que as cotas funcionem como piso, não como teto de inclusão.

No que concerne à permanência estudantil, é urgente avançarmos numa política federal, unificada e desburocratizada.

A adequada avaliação da política depende da constituição de um sistema integrado de dados educacionais e do mercado de trabalho que seja aberto, transparente e desidentificado —e que possibilite compreender desde as mudanças na demanda por ensino superior à inserção dos cotistas na vida profissional.

Seria importante incentivar com fomento público pesquisas sobre as comissões de heteroclassificação racial para identificar seu impacto no aprimoramento da inclusão étnico-racial compatível com a complexidade das classificações raciais no Brasil.

Por fim, consideramos importante que as ações afirmativas não fiquem restritas às cotas na graduação. Urge uma lei específica para a pós-graduação, sensível às especificidades desse nível de formação, da mesma forma que instituir políticas de inclusão no mercado de trabalho.

Brasil pode levar quase 116 anos para atingir equilíbrio entre negros e brancos (Folha de S.Paulo)

19/11/2022UncategorizedAções afirmativas, Antirracismo, Desigualdade, Educação, Equidade, Previsão, Racismo, Racismo estruturalrenzotaddei

www1.folha.uol.com.br

Em duas décadas, região Norte foi a única que chegou ao patamar de equilíbrio racial; Centro-Oeste teve maior avanço

Douglas Gavras, Patrick Fuentes e Cristina Sano

19 de novembro de 2022

Concluindo um mestrado em comunicação na UFBA (Universidade Federal da Bahia), Mariana Gomes, 24, é de uma família que foi transformada pela educação. Seu avô deixou o interior da Bahia para se tornar médico, o que estimulou a geração seguinte a ter um diploma superior e, em seguida, a geração dos netos.

Cotista, ela teve a possibilidade de dividir as cadeiras da graduação com outros alunos negros. “A minha geração já tem a referência da universidade como possibilidade real de manter esse processo de ascensão e conquistar direitos básicos.”

Agora, além de ver a necessidade de manter e aprimorar as políticas de acesso ao ensino superior, ela quer pensar no dia seguinte. “É preciso que mais pretos e pardos percebam a educação como possibilidade de resguardar direitos e avançar em oportunidades de trabalho e autonomia.”

Apesar de avanços no aumento da diversidade no ensino superior, mantido o ritmo atual, o Brasil deve levar quase 116 anos para que pretos e pardos tenham acesso às mesmas oportunidades que os brancos, de acordo com a mais recente edição do Ifer (Índice Folha de Equilíbrio Racial).

Enquanto políticas, como o sistema de cotas raciais, ajudaram a melhorar o indicador de equilíbrio racial para a educação —e ainda assim, a diferença em relação aos brancos só deve ser superada em 34 anos— a redução da desigualdade de renda e longevidade decepciona.

Quando considerada a renda, o tempo necessário até o equilíbrio é de 406 anos. No caso da sobrevida ou longevidade, a maior parte dos estados do país está em relativo equilíbrio racial, mas os indicadores têm piorado rumo ao desequilíbrio, segundo o Ifer.

O índice é uma ferramenta cuja metodologia foi elaborada no ano passado pelos pesquisadores do Insper Sergio Firpo, Michael França —ambos colunistas da Folha— e Alysson Portella.

Ele ajuda a medir a distância entre a desigualdade racial no país e um cenário hipotético de equilíbrio, em que a presença dos negros nas faixas com melhores condições de vida refletisse o peso que eles têm na população com 30 anos ou mais.

Seus componentes são ensino superior completo, sobrevida e presença no topo da pirâmide de renda, tendo como base a Pnad (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios), do IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística). Ao longo deste mês, outras reportagens irão detalhar o que ocorreu com esses itens.

O resultado é um indicador que varia de -1 a 1. Quanto mais próximo de -1, maior é a representação dos brancos em relação aos negros; já o valor muito perto de 1 aponta um cenário hipotético, em que a população negra teria mais representação.

Além disso, quanto mais próximo de zero estiver o número, mais perto o indicador vai estar do equilíbrio racial, considerando-se a população de referência.

Para estimar o tempo que falta até chegar o equilíbrio, é feito um cálculo usando a linha temporal dos dados e considerando a tendência linear que mais se aproxima do que ocorreu no período. Essa tendência, então, é extrapolada para o futuro, para que saiba em quanto tempo se chegará a zero.

MELHORA DA DESIGUALDADE É TÍMIDA, APONTAM NÚMEROS

Na versão mais recente do índice, os pesquisadores compararam os indicadores por um período de 2001 a 2021 e concluíram que a redução do desequilíbrio racial no país caminhou de forma modesta.

Em duas décadas, o indicador geral melhorou 0,071 ponto, indo de -0,389 para -0,318, apontando ainda a maior representação de brancos ante negros.

Nesse período, a região Norte foi a única do país que conseguiu atingir o patamar de equilíbrio racial relativo, que varia de 0,2 a -0,2. Nos estados ao norte, o indicador geral do Ifer passou de -0,301 para -0,196 ponto.

“São sociedades mais pobres também, com pouco espaço para ter uma desigualdade muito visível. Há uma certa homogeneidade, inclusive racial, na carência. São economias com crescimento e renda menores”, diz Firpo, que também é colunista da Folha.

Ainda assim, a maior queda se deu no Centro-Oeste, com uma melhora de 0,133 ponto, indo de -0,378 para -0,245.

Na outra ponta, nas regiões mais ricas do país, a desigualdade é bem mais forte: o Sudeste teve o pior indicador em 2021, de -0,383 ponto (já era o lanterninha em 2001, com -0,411); no Sul, passou de -0,308 em 2001 para -0,253 em 2021.

Das 27 unidades da Federação, 22 melhoraram, 4 pioraram (Ceará, Santa Catarina, São Paulo e Sergipe) e 1 ficou estagnada (Espírito Santo). No caso dos estados, como a base amostral para algumas UFs é muito pequena, optou-se por utilizar as médias móveis de três anos, e a série vai de 2004 a 2021.

Quando se olha para os dados gerais do país, a pequena melhora foi impulsionada pelo indicador que aponta o acesso ao ensino superior, com uma melhora de 0,223 ponto, ao passar de -0,598 para -0,375.

“O Brasil ainda não dá acesso à elite para os negros. Isso tem se reduzido, mas em uma velocidade muito pequena, o que deixa claro o quanto é necessário aumentar o número de políticas públicas integradoras”, diz Firpo.

Ele avalia que o reflexo da redução da desigualdade só deve começar a aparecer com mais clareza nos demais indicadores após maiores investimentos em qualificação profissional.

“Facilitar o acesso à universidade pública é uma demanda histórica e importante, mas a forma mais eficiente de reduzir a desigualdade de oportunidades é integrar negros e brancos, ricos e pobres desde cedo, fazer com que a parcela mais excluída da população conviva com pessoas que vão ampliar sua possibilidade de acesso a um conjunto de oportunidades lá na frente”, diz.

No mesmo intervalo de tempo, o indicador nacional de renda melhorou apenas 0,068 ponto, de -0,516 para -0,448 ponto.

Nesse caso, o cálculo da renda considera a proporção de pretos e pardos que alcançam ou ultrapassam a renda (incluindo salários e demais rendimentos) que separa os brancos 10% mais ricos dos demais 90%, além de seu peso populacional.

Já os dados de sobrevida —apesar de seguirem no patamar de equilíbrio entre negros e brancos, na maioria dos casos— apontam uma piora: era de -0,052, em 2001, e foi para -0,130 duas décadas mais tarde.

O cálculo do componente de sobrevida no Ifer é semelhante ao que é feito para o indicador de renda: extrai-se o grupo de brancos 10% mais idosos e calcula-se a idade que o separa dos demais 90%.

O destaque negativo também é o Sudeste, onde o índice de Sobrevida passou de -0,104 para -0,202, saindo do nível de equilíbrio para o de maior representatividade branca.

AVANÇO DE LONGEVIDADE E RENDA DEMANDA INVESTIMENTOS

Mesmo celebrando os avanços em parte dos indicadores, os especialistas ouvidos pela reportagem destacam a necessidade de políticas públicas direcionadas para o combate ao racismo, tanto no mercado de trabalho quanto na rede pública de atendimento, para que os demais indicadores também avancem.

“Não basta que apenas a educação melhore, cada um dos componentes possui o mesmo peso e deveria ser observado de forma consistente por políticas públicas de redução da desigualdade”, diz França, que também é colunista da Folha.

Ele também destaca que a piora do índice de sobrevida no período, que caminha para o desequilíbrio, pode indicar a diferença no acesso a planos de saúde privados, um fator em que a população branca sempre leva vantagem, e a falta de investimentos adequados no SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde).

“Já para o componente da renda é preciso começar a discutir mais seriamente as barreiras que existem para os negros. Ampliamos o acesso ao ensino superior, mas isso ainda não se reflete em melhores postos no mercado de trabalho”, complementa.

Além de educação, saúde e renda, fatores como privilégios ligados a cor de pele e estrutura familiar economicamente saudável ajudam a explicar a queda tímida no desequilíbrio entre negros e brancos”, diz Portella. “Chegar aos 10% mais privilegiados no Brasil é difícil. Em um país tão desigual, muitas vezes os pequenos ganhos não são suficientes para colocar [os negros] no topo.”

Sobre as diferenças regionais, ele acrescenta que locais com maior concentração de renda, como o Sudeste, possuem obstáculos adicionais para a população negra, dado o privilégio econômico dos brancos.

“Pessoas realmente ricas contam com redes de contatos que desempenham um papel muito importante [na ascensão social]. Então, para um negro da periferia vai ser muito difícil acessar uma rede que vai te permitir entrar nesse grupo; já uma pessoa branca fica mais fácil se manter lá”, diz.

“A população [negra] também acaba sendo mais vulnerável aos ciclos da economia e às decisões do governo”, avalia Marcelo Paixão, economista e professor da Universidade do Texas. Segundo ele, apesar de melhoras simbólicas e materiais no desequilíbrio entre brancos e negros no Brasil, momentos de crise econômica ou de alta na inflação, tendem a afetar mais pessoas negras.

Para Paixão, a desigualdade passa por ciclos, no qual pode diminuir e se agravar em diferentes períodos históricos. No entanto, a falta de estrutura familiar mais organizada, as dificuldades no acesso ao mercado de trabalho formal e à Previdência são maiores para os negros.

“Equidade é dar ferramentas específicas a grupos que tiveram uma desigualdade de oportunidade na origem. Se você nasce numa família que consegue suprir a ineficiência do setor público, seu filho larga na frente”, diz Carla Beni, economista e professora no MBA da FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas).

Ela destaca que a discriminação também impende o equilíbrio relativo entre negros e brancos. “A falácia da meritocracia dificulta o aprofundamento do debate e criação de novas políticas para aumentar representatividade da população negra e parda no país”, diz.

Para o economista Mário Theodoro, autor de “A Sociedade Desigual – Racismo e Branquitude na Formação do Brasil”, ainda faltam políticas direcionadas para a redução da desigualdade.

“Um estudo que fiz durante o governo anterior do presidente Lula mostrava a redução da pobreza entre negros e brancos, mas agora é preciso pensar em mecanismos que privilegiam os negros mais pobres. As políticas universais são fundamentais, mas se não forem complementadas pelas políticas de combate ao racismo, o patamar de diferença vai se manter.”

Opinion | On Affirmative Action, What Once Seemed Unthinkable Might Become Real (New York Times)

29/10/2022UncategorizedAções afirmativas, Cotas, Discriminação, Educação, EUA, Lei de cotas, Raça, Racismorenzotaddei

nytimes.com

Guest Essay

Oct. 28, 2022

By Linda Greenhouse

As affirmative action prepares to meet its fate before a transformed Supreme Court, after having been deemed constitutional in higher education for more than four decades, the cases to be argued on Monday bring into sharp focus a stunning reality.

After all this time, after the civil rights movement and the many anti-discrimination laws it gave birth to, after the election of the first Black president and the profound racial reckoning of the past few years — perhaps because of all those things — the country is still debating the meaning of Brown v.Board of Education.

A dispute over what the court meant when it declared in 1954 that racial segregation in the public schools violates constitutional equality is not what I expected to find when I picked up the daunting pile of briefs filed in two cases challenging racially conscious admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. There are more than 100 briefs, representing the views of hundreds of individual and organizational “friends of the court,” in addition to those filed by the parties themselves.

Both cases were developed by a made-to-order organization called Students for Fair Admissions Inc. The group asks the court in both cases to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, its 2003 decision upholding affirmative action in student admissions to the University of Michigan’s law school.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the majority in Grutter, said then that society’s interest in maintaining a diverse educational environment was “compelling” and justified keeping affirmative action going, as needed, for the next 25 years. Since that was 19 years ago, I expected to read an argument for why the timetable should be foreshortened or, more broadly, why diversity should no longer be considered the compelling interest the court said it was in 1978 in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. The court concluded in that case that race could be used as one criterion by universities in their admissions decisions.

Instead, I found this bold assertion on page 47 of the plaintiff’s main brief: “Because Brown is our law, Grutter cannot be.”

Relying on a kind of double bank shot, the argument by Students for Fair Admissions goes like this: The Brown decision interpreted the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee to prohibit racial segregation in public schools. In doing so, it overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established 58 years earlier in Plessy v. Ferguson. Therefore, the court in Brown necessarily bound itself to Justice John Marshall Harlan’s reference in his dissenting opinion in Plessy to a “colorblind” Constitution.

“Just as Brown overruled Plessy’s deviation from our ‘colorblind’ Constitution, this court should overrule Grutter’s,” the group asserts in its brief. “That decision has no more support in constitutional text or precedent than Plessy.”

Briefs on the universities’ side take vigorous issue with what the University of North Carolina’s brief calls “equal protection revisionism.” Noting that Justice Harlan’s objection to enforced separation of the races was that it imposed a “badge of servitude” on Black citizens, the brief observes that “policies that bring students together bear no such badge.”

Moreover, a brief by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., under the auspices of which Thurgood Marshall argued Brown before the Supreme Court, warns that the plaintiff’s position “would transform Brown from an indictment against racial apartheid into a tool that supports racial exclusion.” The “egregious error” in the court’s majority opinion in Plessy, the legal defense fund’s brief explains, was not its failure to embrace a “colorblind” ideal but its “failure to acknowledge the realities and consequences of persistent anti-Black racism in our society.” For that reason, the brief argues, the Grutter decision honored Brown, not Plessy.

“Some level of race-consciousness to ensure equal access to higher education remains critical to realizing the promise of Brown,” the defense fund argues.

Grutter was a 5-to-4 decision. While the court was plainly not at rest on the question of affirmative action, it evidently did not occur to the justices in 2003 to conduct their debate on the ground of which side was most loyal to Brown. Each of the four dissenters — Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — wrote an opinion. None cited Brown; Justice Thomas quoted Justice Harlan’s “our Constitution is colorblind” language from his Plessy dissent in the last paragraph of his 31-page opinion, which was mainly a passionate expression of his view that affirmative action has hurt rather than helped African Americans.

While the contest at the court over Brown’s meaning is new in the context of higher education, it was at the core of the 2007 decision known as Parents Involved, which concerned a limited use of race in K-12 school assignments to prevent integrated schools from becoming segregated again. In his opinion declaring the practice unconstitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts had this to say: “Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again — even for very different reasons.” In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer called the chief justice’s appropriation of Brown “a cruel distortion of history.”

The invocation of a supposedly race-neutral 14th Amendment — as the former Reagan administration attorney general Edwin Meese III phrased it in his brief against the universities — goes to the very meaning of equal protection. That was clear earlier this month in the argument in the court’s important Voting Rights Act case in the new term.

Alabama is appealing a decision requiring it to draw a second congressional district with a Black majority. Alabama’s solicitor general, Edmund LaCour, denounced the decision as imposing a racial gerrymander that he said placed the Voting Rights Act “at war with itself and with the Constitution.” “The Fourteenth Amendment is a prohibition on discriminatory state action,” he told the justices. “It is not an obligation to engage in affirmative discrimination in favor of some groups vis-à-vis others.”

The newest member of the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, pushed back strongly with an opposite account of the 14th Amendment’s origins. “I don’t think that the historical record establishes that the founders believed that race neutrality or race blindness was required,” she said. “The entire point of the amendment was to secure the rights of the freed former slaves.”

It is no coincidence that challenges to the constitutionality of both affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act appear on the court’s calendar in a single term. The conjunction reflects the accurate perception that the current court is open to fundamental re-examination of both. Indeed, decisions going back to the 1980s have held that in setting government policy, race cannot be a “predominant” consideration. But whether because the votes haven’t been there or from some institutional humility no longer in evidence, the court always stopped short of proceeding to the next question: whether the Constitution permits the consideration of race at all.

That question, always lurking in the background, is now front and center. Not too long ago, it would have been scarcely thinkable that if and when the court took that step, it would do so in the name of Brown v. Board of Education. But if the last term taught us anything, it’s that the gap between the unthinkable and the real is very short, and shrinking fast.

Ms. Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.

Lei de Cotas pode ser alterada com exclusão de critérios raciais para seleção de alunos (Carta Capital)

17/03/2022UncategorizedAntirracismo, Cotas, Desigualdade, Educação, Justiça social, Lei de cotas, Racismo, Racismo estruturalrenzotaddei

cartacapital.com.br

No texto sancionado por Dilma Rousseff, está prevista uma revisão do sistema após dez anos de implantação, o que ocorrerá em agosto próximo

Por Fabíola Mendonça e Rodrigo Martins | 11.03.2022 05h30

No início de 2021, uma família negra de Caçapava, no interior paulista, teve uma dupla conquista para celebrar. A técnica de enfermagem Sandra Baptista, de 53 anos, obteve uma bolsa de estudos integral para cursar Gestão Pública em uma universidade privada de Santos. Já a filha Lívia Gabrielle dos Santos da Silva, de 18 anos, foi aprovada no processo seletivo do curso de Engenharia Química da USP, no campus de Lorena, e tornou-se a primeira integrante do núcleo familiar a ter acesso a uma universidade pública. Até então, apenas outro filho teve a oportunidade de cursar uma faculdade, com financiamento pelo Fies.

Sandra precisou adiar por muitos anos o sonho do ensino superior. Chegou a iniciar alguns cursos no passado, mas precisou abandoná-los em decorrência de problemas financeiros. Agora, com os filhos crescidos, acredita ser possível conciliar o trabalho com a graduação a distância. Lívia, por sua vez, entrou na USP logo após o Ensino Médio. Não foi uma tarefa fácil, ainda mais em tempos de pandemia. “Começava às 7 e meia da manhã e seguia com os estudos até 9 da noite, sem descanso”, relembra. Um sacrifício necessário para dar conta das aulas remotas da escola, a elaboração do trabalho de conclusão de curso e o reforço do Emancipa, um cursinho popular, mantido por voluntários.

ANTES EM MINORIA, OS NEGROS HOJE SOMAM 51,2% DOS ALUNOS DAS UNIVERSIDADES FEDERAIS. AS VAGAS PARA BRANCOS TAMBÉM CRESCERAM

Beneficiária do sistema de cotas, ela recebe uma bolsa de 500 reais para custear a moradia e tem direito a refeições gratuitas no restaurante universitário. “Como divido o apartamento com duas amigas, consigo pagar a maior parte dos gastos. Ainda assim, preciso da ajuda dos meus pais para cobrir algumas despesas”, comenta. “Sem as cotas e sem esse auxílio financeiro do programa de permanência, eu jamais conseguiria fazer esse curso na USP. Os alunos da escola pública estão em muita desvantagem em relação aos de colégios particulares. E acho muito justo que a população negra tenha acesso facilitado às universidades, até para reparar os três séculos e meio de escravidão e toda a exclusão que sofremos desde então. Após a Abolição, por muitos anos nos impediram de estudar e até mesmo de trabalhar em algumas profissões, como cocheiro. Nada mais justo do que termos, ao menos, a possibilidade de modificar o nosso futuro.”

Assim como Lívia, centenas de milhares de brasileiros tiveram acesso à universidade pública facilitado pelas cotas raciais, implantadas oficialmente no Brasil a partir da Lei 12.711, de 2012. No texto sancionado por Dilma Rousseff, está prevista uma revisão do sistema de cotas após dez anos de implantação, o que ocorrerá em agosto próximo. O governo ainda não se pronunciou formalmente sobre o tema, mas o ministro da Educação, o pastor presbiteriano Milton Ribeiro, já se manifestou no passado contra a reserva de vagas por critérios étnico-raciais. Pior: no Congresso, representantes da base bolsonarista e da autointitulada “direita liberal” se articulam para derrubar o mecanismo, mantendo apenas os critérios sociais.

Em artigo publicado no Jornal da Ciência, um veículo da Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência, o advogado José Eduardo Cardoso, ex-ministro da Justiça, esclarece que a lei não tem prazo de validade. “No seu texto não existe nenhuma data estabelecendo o fim da sua vigência. Ao contrário, o que existe, no seu art. 7º, é a previsão de que se realize uma revisão dos seus termos, ‘no prazo de dez anos’, e não a afirmação da ‘perda da sua vigência’ após o período de dez anos”. Ou seja, a legislação não vai caducar, caso os parlamentares decidam analisar o tema com calma em outro momento, fora do afogadilho do período eleitoral.

“Sim, podemos ocupar espaços de poder“, diz Joana Guimarães, primeira reitora negra do País – Imagem: UFSB

Cleber Santos, presidente da Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores Negros e professor da Unifesp, reforça essa linha de raciocínio e não descarta judicializar a questão, caso seja retirada da lei a reserva de vagas nas universidades para pretos, pardos e indígenas (PPI). “A lei não tem uma expiração prevista para ocorrer em 2022. Fala de monitoramento e avaliação por parte dos órgãos públicos responsáveis, o que não ocorreu”, observa. “É preciso entender a revisão como um processo de aperfeiçoamento a partir desse monitoramento e avaliação, com dados concretos.”

A possibilidade da exclusão dos critérios raciais preocupa os defensores das cotas, sobretudo quando se considera o perfil do governo Bolsonaro, sempre refratário a políticas públicas inclusivas. “Há o enorme risco de aprovarem uma nova legislação que limite as cotas ou abram a possibilidade de o presidente Jair Bolsonaro vetar um trecho específico, que leve à exclusão de algum grupo beneficiado”, chama atenção Renato Janine Ribeiro, ex-ministro da Educação e atual presidente da SBPC. “É preciso destacar que todas as cotas são sociais, pois os beneficiários precisam ser, necessariamente, egressos de escolas públicas. Você pode ser negro, pode ser indígena, pode ter alguma deficiência… Não terá direito à reserva de vagas a menos que tenha cursado os três anos do Ensino Médio na rede pública. Não vejo por que mudar esse sistema. Ele não prejudica ninguém. As cotas levam em conta a proporção de todos os grupos étnicos e pessoas com deficiência existentes em cada estado, nem mais nem menos.”

Uma das iniciativas para acabar com as cotas raciais foi apresentada pelo deputado Kim Kataguiri, do DEM. Em tramitação na Câmara, o Projeto de Lei 4125/21 estabelece que as vagas deveriam ser destinadas exclusivamente aos alunos de baixa renda. “Além de inconstitucionais, as políticas de discriminação positiva não fazem o menor sentido. Quem é excluído da educação é o pobre, que entra cedo no mercado de trabalho e depende dos serviços educacionais do Estado, que, em geral, são de péssima qualidade”, diz o parlamentar. “A pobreza não tem cor.”

Fontes: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE): Pesquisas Anuais de Domicílios (1996, 2003 e 2014) e Censo 2010. V Pesquisa Nacional de Perfil Socioeconômico e Cultural dos(as) graduandos(as) das Ifes (2018).

O militante do MBL, que recentemente lamentou o fato de a Alemanha ter criminalizado o nazismo em um podcast, parece ignorar os indicadores sociais, sempre mais desfavoráveis à população negra, mesmo quando se comparam grupos com a mesma escolaridade ou faixa de renda. “Perder o componente racial é retroceder mais de 130 anos de história. As cotas ainda não respondem a toda necessidade da população brasileira, sobretudo a que vive discriminação histórica. É visível que avançou a presença dos estudantes negros nas universidades federais, mas é também visível a imensidão do lado de fora”, afirma Matilde Riberio, ex-ministra da Secretaria Especial de Igualdade Racial no governo Lula. “A manutenção do componente racial é uma responsabilidade do Estado e da sociedade, considerando que, em todos os dados estatísticos de todas as áreas das políticas públicas, você identificará que a população negra é preterida.”

A lei determina que todas as universidades e institutos federais de ensino devem reservar ao menos 50% das vagas dos cursos de graduação para alunos que tenham cursado integralmente o Ensino Médio em escolas públicas. Desse montante, metade das vagas será destinada a pessoas com renda de até um salário mínimo e meio per capita. A outra é distribuída entre pretos, pardos e indígenas e pessoas com deficiência, considerando a proporcionalidade das populações em cada estado, segundo o último Censo do IBGE. “O sistema de ensino é ruim para todos, brancos e não brancos, mas, quando a gente olha para o Ensino Médio, 71,7% dos jovens fora da escola são negros”, comenta José Nilton, professor de Educação das Relações Étnico-Raciais, disciplina obrigatória em todos os cursos da UFRPE.

A maior virtude da Lei de Cotas é o fato de ser uma política abrangente e multidimensional, com uma combinação de critérios que combate, simultaneamente, as desigualdades socioeconômicas e as raciais, ressalta Adriano Senkevics, doutor em Educação pela USP e pesquisador do Inep. Dessa forma, democratizou-se o acesso às universidades federais, inclusive nas carreiras mais prestigiadas, como medicina e engenharia. “Não se pode dizer que a legislação privilegia grupos que teriam condições financeiras de disputar vagas pelo sistema universal, pois todos os cotistas, sem exceção, precisam ser egressos de escola pública, dos quais metade deles também de renda baixa. E não bastaria manter apenas os critérios sociais, pois a desigualdade possui especificidades de cunho racial”, explica Senkevics.

O ministro-pastor Milton Ribeiro e o deputado Kim Kataguiri acreditam que a pobreza não tem cor. Quem sabe na Suécia, vai saber… – Imagem: Luis Fortes/MEC e Deputados do DEM

Em estudo publicado há três anos na Cadernos de Pesquisa, revista científica da Fundação Carlos Chagas, Senkevics e Ursula Mattioli Mello, pesquisadora do Institute for Economic Analysis, de Barcelona, revelaram o impacto da Lei de Cotas nas universidades. O porcentual de alunos egressos de escolas públicas e com renda de até um salário mínimo e meio, independentemente do perfil racial, aumentou de 48,12%, em 2012, para 54,8% em 2016. Dentro desse grupo, a maior expansão deu-se entre pretos, pardos e indígenas, cuja participação cresceu de 24,9% para 34% no mesmo período. “Ou seja, se a legislação não contemplasse os critérios raciais, haveria uma menor representatividade étnica no ensino superior.”

O impacto da Lei de Cotas foi ainda mais expressivo nas instituições de ensino que tardaram a adotar políticas afirmativas. A UFC, para citar um exemplo, não possuía qualquer sistema de reserva de vagas até então e dobrou o porcentual de ingressantes provenientes da escola pública em quatro anos – a participação desse grupo aumentou de 28,4%, em 2012, para 56,9%, em 2016. No caso da Ufes, que desde 2008 reservava de 40% a 50% das vagas para alunos da rede pública, o aumento foi tímido, de apenas 1,2%.

Autor do projeto pioneiro sobre cotas no Brasil, implantado na UnB em 2003, o antropólogo e professor José Jorge Carvalho acompanha esse debate há mais de 30 anos e diz ser incalculável a evolução da participação de pretos, pardos e indígenas nas universidades públicas. “Uma revolução foi feita. Eu lembro de dar aula há 20 anos em uma turma que eram todos brancos, às vezes tinha um único estudante negro. Agora, se você entrar na sala de aula, ela está integrada racialmente, com estudantes negros, brancos, indígenas, de baixa renda. É uma revolução social, racial e étnica gigantesca”, avalia. “A partir das cotas, os estudantes negros e indígenas começaram a questionar o currículo ensinado – eurocêntrico, centrado na cultura branca europeia. Queriam saber quando iriam estudar os escritores e poetas negros, a psicologia e a filosofia negras, a arte e o pensamento indígenas. A universidade cresceu intelectualmente.”

“SE REVISAR A LEI NESTE MOMENTO, HÁ O ENORME RISCO DE APROVAREM UMA NOVA LEGISLAÇÃO QUE LIMITE AS COTAS”, ALERTA JANINE RIBEIRO

Embora não considere o momento mais adequado para a revisão da Lei de Cotas, em razão da pressão de grupos reacionários pela supressão dos critérios raciais, Senkevics acredita que há, sim, aspectos que podem ser aperfeiçoados. Hoje, para definir o porcentual de vagas reservadas aos PPI em cada estado, são utilizados os dados do Censo Demográfico, realizado a cada dez anos. Além disso, a pandemia atrasou a realização do último levantamento, que deveria ter acontecido em 2020. O Censo está defasado e poderia perfeitamente ser substituído pela Pesquisa Nacional por Amostragem Domiciliar, atualizada constantemente pelo IBGE.

Outro ponto sensível é a ausência de regulamentação sobre o trabalho das comissões verificadoras das cotas, criadas para combater as fraudes na autodeclaração racial dos alunos. “Isso tem provocado uma crescente judicialização de casos, além de trazer prejuízos para todos os envolvidos: o estudante que é expulso nos anos finais de conclusão do curso, a universidade que gastou recursos para a formação desse aluno e o próprio cotista que perdeu aquela vaga”, observa Senkevics. “Com critérios mais claros, esse problema tende a ser minimizado.”

Fonte: IBGE, Pnad Contínua, 2018.

Autor de um projeto que propõe a prorrogação da Lei de Cotas por 50 anos e inclui na proposta políticas de assistência para a permanência dos estudantes, o deputado Valmir Assunção, do PT, defende a criação do Conselho Nacional das Ações Afirmativas do Ensino Superior, cuja finalidade seria monitorar a aplicação das regras, com a participação dos movimentos negro e estudantil das próprias universidades. Com os sucessivos cortes e congelamentos de recursos para o ensino superior desde 2015, as instituições de ensino enfrentam uma dificuldade cada vez maior de oferecer auxílio-moradia e refeições gratuitas aos alunos de baixa renda.

“Essa política material que garante assistência educacional é o que proporciona aos estudantes em vulnerabilidade a possibilidade de permanecerem nesses cursos onde a exigência é bem maior, como medicina. Mas, com os cortes, a gente não consegue atender a todos”, lamenta Cássia Virgínia Maciel, pró-reitora de Ações Afirmativas da UFBA, ressaltando que, em 2021, o corte na assistência estudantil da instituição foi de 7,2 milhões de reais. “Os valores repassados nunca deram para as universidades trabalharem com folga. Mas não havia essa política de negação do conhecimento como existe no governo atual”, completa Denise Góes, coordenadora da Comissão de Políticas Raciais da UFRJ, ressaltando que a universidade fluminense, a partir de 2019, precisou limitar a concessão de bolsas para alunos com renda per capita de até meio salário mínimo – antes, o benefício estendia-se a quem tinha até um salário mínimo e meio.

Importante observar que os brancos e asiáticos sofreram uma perda apenas relativa, em termos meramente proporcionais. “O número de vagas nas universidades federais passou de cerca de 100 mil, em 2001, para mais de 230 mil em 2011. Ou seja, o número de vagas para alunos não cotistas aumentou 15% nesse período, de 100 mil para 115 mil”, observa Janine Ribeiro. “A expansão da rede federal de ensino superior permitiu que ninguém fosse prejudicado com as cotas. Foi um jogo de ganha-ganha.”

“É VISÍVEL A PRESENÇA DOS NEGROS NAS UNIVERSIDADES, MAS É TAMBÉM VISÍVEL A IMENSIDÃO DO LADO DE FORA”, DIZ A EX-MINISTRA MATILDE RIBEIRO

A 5ª Pesquisa Nacional de Perfil Socioeconômico e Cultural dos(as) Graduandos(as) dos Ifes, realizada pela Andifes, corrobora a avaliação de Janine Ribeiro. Em termos porcentuais, a participação da população branca nas universidades federais caiu de 53,9%, em 2010, para 43,3%, em 2018. Não houve, porém, redução do número de alunos brancos. Ao contrário, o quantitativo aumentou de 353,8 mil para 520 mil no mesmo período. As cotas apenas asseguraram maior participação de grupos étnicos sub-representados. A população preta e parda, antes minoritária, passou a representar 51,2% do total de alunos.

O Grupo de Estudos Multidisciplinar da Ação Afirmativa, vinculado à Uerj, também tem dados que mostram a evolução das cotas nas universidades federais. Segundo o estudo, em 2012, havia pouco mais de 30 mil vagas para os cotistas e 110 mil para ampla concorrência. Sete anos depois, quase 138 mil pretos, pardos, indígenas e pessoas com deficiência puderam fazer um curso superior graças ao sistema. E isso não significou redução de vagas para brancos, pois havia mais de 125 mil ofertas para ampla concorrência, 15 mil a mais que em 2012. “A reserva de vagas foi e é a principal política de mobilidade social do País. É preciso não só manter, mas ampliar, e acabar com a visão de que não existe racismo no Brasil”, diz Penildo Silva Filho, pró-reitor de graduação da UFBA.

“A reparação mal começou“, observa Matilde – Imagem: Valter Campanato/ABR

Primeira mulher negra eleita reitora de uma universidade federal, a geóloga Joana Guimarães chama atenção para o caráter simbólico, histórico, cultural e socioeconômico das cotas. “O fato de eu estar como reitora de uma universidade tem um significado, passa a mensagem de que temos o direito de ocupar espaços de poder. Contribui para uma mudança de olhar, para que os alunos negros se sintam capazes”, destaca a docente, da UFSB. “O que faltou a eles foi oportunidade, pois são tão inteligentes quanto qualquer aluno branco. A única diferença são as condições, o ponto de partida.”

A representatividade também é percebida pela população indígena. Formado em jornalismo pela UFPE, Tarisson Nawa, de 25 anos, está concluindo mestrado e já foi aprovado para o doutorado da UFRJ, dentro da reserva para indígenas. Isso porque, mesmo sem a obrigatoriedade de cota na pós-graduação, muitos programas instituíram a ação afirmativa. “A gente não via perspectiva de entrar na universidade”, comenta. “As cotas são uma possibilidade de deixarmos de ser objeto de pesquisa para sermos autores da pesquisa. Não precisamos mais ser pesquisados por não indígenas, vamos construir as nossas próprias narrativas a partir das nossas vidas, numa cosmovisão dos povos indígenas.”

Sobre a adoção das cotas no mestrado e no doutorado, o coordenador dos Programas de Pós-Graduação em Direito da PUC Minas, Marciano Seabra Godoi, destaca a necessidade de pessoas negras e indígenas passarem a produzir conhecimento. “Quem pesquisa e cria teorias é o público da pós-graduação. É preciso colocar essa população para disputar narrativas. Se você coloca os cotistas só na graduação, nega a eles a produção do saber.” •

PUBLICADO NA EDIÇÃO Nº 1199 DE CARTACAPITAL, EM 16 DE MARÇO DE 2022.

Este texto aparece na edição impressa de CartaCapital sob o título “O revide da casa-grande”

Leia mais em https://www.cartacapital.com.br/politica/lei-de-cotas-pode-ser-alterada-com-exclusao-de-criterios-raciais-para-selecao-de-alunos/. O conteúdo de CartaCapital está protegido pela legislação brasileira sobre direito autoral. Essa defesa é necessária para manter o jornalismo corajoso e transparente de CartaCapital vivo e acessível a todos.

O que é racismo religioso. E qual seu efeito nas crianças (Nexo)

31/01/2022UncategorizedDiscriminação, Educação, Justiça, Racismo, Racismo estrutural, Religião, Religiões afrobrasileiras, Saúde mentalrenzotaddei

Iraci Falavina e Guilherme Gurgel

21 de jan de 2022 (atualizado 21/01/2022 às 20h39)

Pais que praticam religiões de matriz africana no Brasil relatam casos de preconceito, incluindo a perda da guarda de filhos sob a anuência da Justiça

Devotos do candomblé carregam cestas de flores em cerimônia religiosa, na Bahia — DEVOTOS DO CANDOMBLÉ CARREGAM CESTAS DE FLORES EM CERIMÔNIA RELIGIOSA, NA BAHIA

Este conteúdo foi produzido pelos autores como trabalho final do Lab Nexo de Jornalismo Digital, que teve como tema “Primeira Infância e Desigualdades” e foi realizado no segundo semestre de 2021. O programa é uma iniciativa do Nexo Jornal em parceria com a Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal e apoio da Porticus América Latina e do Insper.

Dados do Ministério da Mulher, Família e Direitos Humanos apontam 645 registros de violações da liberdade de crença e religião no Brasil entre janeiro e dezembro de 2021, a maior parcela relacionada a religiões de matriz africana — incluindo Candomblé, Umbanda e outras. Levantamentos anteriores também refletem essa realidade.

INTOLERÂNCIA

Registros de violações de liberdade religiosa no Brasil, por gênero da vítima, de acordo com dados da Ouvidoria Nacional de Direitos Humanos

O preconceito que cerca quem pratica o Candomblé, a Umbanda, entre outras designações afro, integra o fenômeno do racismo religioso. Trata-se de um problema que, segundo especialistas, tem um impacto especialmente danoso para crianças.

Neste texto, o Nexo explica o que configura o racismo religioso, mostra o que a legislação prevê sobre o tema e traz relatos, que vão do preconceito no ambiente escolar a decisões judiciais que fazem com que filhos sejam separados dos pais.

O conceito e a legislação

A expressão “racismo religioso” não está no Código Penal, mas é algo que se enquadra na Lei nº 7.716, de 5 de janeiro de 1989, segundo o advogado especialista em crimes raciais Gilberto Silva.

Tal lei versa sobre crimes provocados por “discriminação ou preconceito de raça, cor, etnia, religião ou procedência nacional”, com penas previstas de um a três anos de reclusão.

O termo “racismo religioso”, então, acaba sendo usado para reforçar um ponto central da sociedade brasileira: o racismo estrutural no Brasil.

Silva afirma que a lei ainda é vista por muitos como pouco eficiente e permissiva. Professor de história da África da UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Alexandre Marcussi concorda que a punição ainda é ineficaz para os casos de racismo religioso. “A lei é extremamente leniente. Tem sido principalmente nos últimos anos no Brasil, com a ascensão ao poder e a influência de cultos religiosos pentecostais, que fazem ataques recorrentes a cultos de religiões africanas”, afirma.

“Se pode entender essas intolerâncias menos como intolerância contra as práticas dessas religiões e mais como uma intolerância às camadas da população que estão historicamente associadas a essas religiões” – Alexandre Marcussi, professor de história da África da UFMG

O Brasil viveu 300 anos de escravidão, período em que milhões de pessoas foram trazidas à força de regiões da África para serem usadas e negociadas como mercadoria. A cultura e a religião dessas pessoas sofreram um processo de tentativa de apagamento.

O artigo 5º da Constituição brasileira de 1824, por exemplo, instituiu o catolicismo como a religião oficial do Império. Já o artigo 276 do Código Criminal de 1830 proibia celebrar em casa, publicamente ou em templos “o culto de outra religião que não seja a do Estado”.

A abolição só foi proclamada em 1888 no Brasil e o Estado brasileiro só se tornou laico a partir de 1890, com o decreto nº 119-A, de 7 de janeiro daquele ano. A lei concedeu a todas as confissões religiosas “a faculdade de exercerem o seu culto, regerem-se segundo a sua fé e não serem contrariadas” e proibiu o Estado de definir uma religião oficial.

Mais tarde, na Constituição de 1988, conhecida como a Constituição Cidadã, o inciso 6 do Artigo 5º assegura ser inviolável a liberdade de crença e o livre exercício dos cultos religiosos.

Ainda assim, o preâmbulo da atual Carta Magna define a promulgação do documento “sob a proteção de Deus”, mostrando resquícios da ainda influente religião cristã no país.

“Ninguém se incomoda da mãe levar o filho para batizar no cristianismo quando é bebê. É uma cerimônia bonita, celebrada, lembrada. Agora, todo mundo incomoda com a iniciação das crianças no Candomblé e na Umbanda. Mesmo estando acompanhada de seus pais. Isso é o quê? Se não o racismo religioso?” – Makota Celinha, coordenadora geral do Cenarab (Centro Nacional de Africanidade e Resistência Afro-Brasileira)

O racismo religioso na escola

As crianças de religiões de matriz africana sofrem preconceito na escola começando por suas brincadeiras, segundo Makota Kidoiale, líder da comunidade quilombola Manzo N’Gunzo Kaiango e coordenadora do programa Educa Quilombo, em Belo Horizonte.

“No primeiro ano de escola dos meus netos, eles iam para o parquinho e as brincadeiras deles eram muito diferentes do que a própria estrutura da escola foi programada para poder receber. Eles ficavam reproduzindo tudo aquilo que eles viviam dentro do terreiro”, conta.

Segundo Kidoiale, a administração da escola se incomodou com o comportamento das crianças. “Tinham medo de criar um problema com outras famílias, porque as outras crianças podiam reproduzir isso em casa. Eu questionei, porque da mesma forma que meu neto trazia outra cultura, outra tradição, outros conhecimentos para dentro da nossa casa, por que não transversalizar com tudo que ele vivenciava dentro da comunidade?”, afirma.

Em 2003 entrou em vigor a lei 10.639, que tornou obrigatório o ensino de história e cultura africana e afro-brasileira no ensino fundamental e médio. Mas, para Kidoiale, a legislação não faz com que a temática tenha uma abordagem adequada na grade curricular. Ela acredita que o fato da educação brasileira ser muito baseada em princípios cristãos acaba por gerar uma exclusão da diversidade. “A escola não dá conta de trabalhar nem mesmo a história da população africana, quanto mais a religião.”

Segundo a psicóloga Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus, da Abrapso (Associação Brasileira de Psicologia Social) e da ABPN (Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores Negros), o combate ao racismo religioso nas escolas é de responsabilidade dos profissionais de educação, dos pais e responsáveis.

“O desafio é que os adultos são formatados nessa sociedade racista, nessa sociedade que tenta formatar, principalmente em um contexto cristão, fundamentalista, crianças que não se enquadram em certos padrões até de roupa e de práticas, então isso é muito violento”.

O racismo religioso na Justiça

Além das diferentes violações de direitos de expressar ritos de matriz africana na escola, há casos em que os pais perdem a guarda das crianças por iniciá-los na religião.

Uma situação que ganhou grande destaque na mídia em 2021 foi a da manicure Kate Belintani, de Araçatuba (SP) que teve a guarda da filha — na época, com 11 anos — suspensa. Kate foi acusada de lesão corporal após raspar os cabelos da menina em um ritual religioso do Candomblé.

Outro caso, que chegou a ser citado pela Unesco (Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura), é o da professora e jornalista Rosiane Rodrigues. Moradora de Rio das Ostras, no Rio de Janeiro, ela conta que perdeu a guarda do filho em 2007 por causa do preconceito religioso, a partir de uma decisão judicial.

Marcus Rodrigues, chamado geralmente de Marquinhos, o mais novo dos três filhos de Rosiane, nasceu em 2004. No ano seguinte, ela se separou do pai da criança, Marcus Henriques, o que deu início a uma disputa sobre quantos dias cada um ficaria com o filho.

Em uma das audiências do processo, Rosiane estava “tomando obrigação de santo”, um costume religioso do Candomblé que determina o uso de roupas brancas, cabeça coberta e colar de contas. Ao ver a professora vestida dessa maneira, a juíza do caso determinou que o laudo psicológico da família fosse feito com urgência. Segundo Rosiane, “depois disso, a juíza concluiu que por eu ser do Candomblé eu tinha menos condições morais de criar o garoto do que o pai dele.”

Rosiane afirma que dois oficiais de Justiça foram retirar Marquinhos de casa acompanhados de um carro da polícia. No momento, o filho estava na escola, e Rosiane se recusou a informar a localização da criança. Ela foi levada para a delegacia.

Marquinhos foi inicialmente entregue ao pai. Mas depois de uma série de vaivéns que duraram quatro anos, Rosana conseguiu a guarda de volta. Ela então buscou auxílio do Nudem (Núcleo de Defesa da Mulher da Defensoria Pública). Três psicólogos e duas assistentes sociais trabalharam em um novo laudo psicossocial de Rosiane e seus filhos.

O garoto fez terapia com um psicólogo infantil durante um ano. “Logo que ele voltou para mim, que a gente consegue essa guarda provisória, ele volta muito assustado, com muito problema, com muito transtorno, uma criança muito agressiva”, conta Rosiane, que chegou a registrar um boletim de ocorrência contra o ex-marido por agressões ao filho.

O caso foi citado no relatório “Direito a uma vida livre de violência”, publicado em 2013 pela Secretaria Nacional de Promoção e Defesa dos Direitos Humanos em parceria com a Unesco como um caso emblemático de intolerância religiosa no Brasil.

Os efeitos do racismo religioso nas crianças

“As crianças não sabem que estão sofrendo intolerância, não têm o discernimento, a capacidade de entender o racismo. Há uma vulnerabilidade de quem não consegue se defender”, ressalta Makota Celinha, do Cenarab.

Para a líder quilombola Makota Kidoiale, um dos passos importantes para lidar com o choque de tradições é ouvir o que as crianças vivenciam. “A gente vai direcionando tudo que elas descobriram lá fora a um determinado lugar da comunidade”, diz.

“Por exemplo, se elas aprendem na escola sobre as folhas, a fase da vegetação, do plantio, aqui a gente acrescenta: ‘essa aula está relacionada a Oxossi, que é deus das folhas, das plantas. E é delas também que a gente tira os remédios’. A gente faz um complemento do que elas aprenderam”, exemplifica.

Nos casos em que o racismo religioso é mais explícito, é difícil conseguir a garantia do bem-estar da criança. “A gente mostra que existem as diferenças das religiões e cada um tem um conceito, e que infelizmente o nosso direito de falar sobre nós é muito recente, então as pessoas poucos sabem sobre nós. Mas às vezes é muito difícil, muito violento. Violento de pegar e pôr pra fora, fazer chacota quando estão vestidas com as contas, ou de branco, as pessoas olham assustadas para eles”, diz Kidoiale.

A psicóloga Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus afirma que crianças que crescem em ambientes de discriminação religiosa se tornam adultos intolerantes, tornando a violência uma marca que molda a personalidade.

“A gente tem que lutar para que os profissionais de educação, de saúde, os que cuidam das crianças, permitam que elas sejam quem elas são, para que não gerem esses traumas que ficam para o resto da vida”, diz.

De acordo com o psicólogo Flávio Prata, pesquisador da área, é importante que a criança tenha um ambiente seguro. “Não há como dimensionar os efeitos do racismo especificamente, mas a influência está nos mecanismos que a criança encontra para lidar com essa discriminação”, afirma.

Study: Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans (EurekaAlert!)

20/08/2021UncategorizedEducação, Estados Unidos, Evoluçãorenzotaddei

News Release 20-Aug-2021

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Michigan

The level of public acceptance of evolution in the United States is now solidly above the halfway mark, according to a new study based on a series of national public opinion surveys conducted over the last 35 years.

“From 1985 to 2010, there was a statistical dead heat between acceptance and rejection of evolution,” said lead researcher Jon D. Miller of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. “But acceptance then surged, becoming the majority position in 2016.”

Examining data over 35 years, the study consistently identified aspects of education—civic science literacy, taking college courses in science and having a college degree—as the strongest factors leading to the acceptance of evolution.

“Almost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988,” said co-author Mark Ackerman, a researcher at Michigan Engineering, the U-M School of Information and Michigan Medicine. “It’s hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science.”

The researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA. Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.”

The series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

The current study consistently identified religious fundamentalism as the strongest factor leading to the rejection of evolution. While their numbers declined slightly in the last decade, approximately 30% of Americans continue to be religious fundamentalists as defined in the study. But even those who scored highest on the scale of religious fundamentalism shifted toward acceptance of evolution, rising from 8% in 1988 to 32% in 2019.

Miller predicted that religious fundamentalism would continue to impede the public acceptance of evolution.

“Such beliefs are not only tenacious but also, increasingly, politicized,” he said, citing a widening gap between Republican and Democratic acceptance of evolution.

As of 2019, 34% of conservative Republicans accepted evolution compared to 83% of liberal Democrats.

The study is published in the journal Public Understanding of Science.

Besides Miller and Ackerman, the authors are Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education; Belén Laspra of the University of Oviedo in Spain; and Carmelo Polino of the University of Oviedo and Centre Redes in Argentina; and Jordan Huffaker of U-M.

Study abstract: Public acceptance of evolution in the United States, 1985-2020

A PDF of the study is available upon request

Journal

Public Understanding of Science

Study shows education is not enough to overcome inequality (EurekaAlert!)

24/04/2021UncategorizedClasses sociais, Desigualdade, Educaçãorenzotaddei

News Release 19-Apr-2021

North Carolina State University

Research News

A recent study finds that social inequality persists, regardless of educational achievement – particularly for men.

“Education is not the equalizer that many people think it is,” says Anna Manzoni, author of the study and an associate professor of sociology at North Carolina State University.

The study aimed to determine the extent to which a parent’s social status gives an advantage to their children. The research used the educational achievements of parents as a proxy for social status, and looked at the earnings of adult children as a proxy for professional success.

To address the research question, Manzoni examined data from people who were interviewed as part of the National Survey of College Graduates between 2010 and 2017. Specifically, Manzoni focused on United States citizens between 35 and 67 years old who reported on their wages and parental education. The final sample size was 56,819 individuals: 32,337 men and 24,482 women.

The analysis found that if a son gets a degree similar to the degree that a parent had, the son will earn more money than if his parent did not achieve the same level of education.

For example, imagine that Son A becomes a doctor, and he had a parent who was also a doctor. Meanwhile, Son B also becomes a doctor, but his parents only had bachelor’s degrees. The study found that, in general, Son A will earn more money than Son B, even though they have the same degree.

This effect also exists for daughters, but it is much weaker.

“The effect we see here essentially preserves social stratification for sons – less so for daughters,” Manzoni says. “We like to think that if someone makes it to college, becomes a lawyer, becomes a doctor, they have ‘made it.’ But what we see is that even earning an advanced degree is unlikely to put you on the same professional footing as someone who earned the same degree but started higher on the social ladder.

“One take-away is that expanding access to education is valuable, but education alone is not enough to resolve our society’s challenges in regard to inequality,” Manzoni says.

“This work shows that social origin matters, but it’s not clear what drives this structural inequality,” Manzoni adds. “Is it social capital? Access to networks? Differing financial resources? Is parental background becoming more important as a larger percentage of the population is getting a college degree? Is the advantage at the beginning of a child’s career? There is still a lot of room for additional research on this subject.”

###

The paper, “Equalizing or Stratifying? Intergenerational Persistence across College Degrees,” appears in the Journal of Higher Education.

Is it better to give than receive? (Science Daily)

03/12/2020UncategorizedCompaixão, Educação, Empatia, Generosidade, Psicologiarenzotaddei

Children who experienced compassionate parenting were more generous than peers

Date: December 1, 2020

Source: University of California – Davis

Summary: Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests. Lab studies were done of children at ages 4 and 6.

Child holding present | Credit: © ulza / stock.adobe.com — Child holding present (stock image). *Credit: © ulza / stock.adobe.com*

Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests.

In lab studies, children tested at ages 4 and 6 showed more willingness to give up the tokens they had earned to fictional children in need when two conditions were present — if they showed bodily changes when given the opportunity to share and had experienced positive parenting that modeled such kindness. The study initially included 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. They were invited back two years later, resulting in 54 mother-child pairs whose behaviors and reactions were analyzed when the children were 6.

“At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed stronger compassionate love were likely to donate more of their earnings,” said Paul Hastings, UC Davis professor of psychology and the mentor of the doctoral student who led the study. “Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of prosocial orientation toward the needs of others,” researchers said in the study.

The study was published in November in Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science. Co-authors were Jonas G. Miller, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University (who was a UC Davis doctoral student when the study was written); Sarah Kahle of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis; and Natalie R. Troxel, now at Facebook.

In each lab exercise, after attaching a monitor to record children’s heart-rate activity, the examiner told the children they would be earning tokens for a variety of activities, and that the tokens could be turned in for a prize. The tokens were put into a box, and each child eventually earned 20 prize tokens. Then before the session ended, children were told they could donate all or part of their tokens to other children (in the first instance, they were told these were for sick children who couldn’t come and play the game, and in the second instance, they were told the children were experiencing a hardship.)

At the same time, mothers answered questions about their compassionate love for their children and for others in general. The mothers selected phrases in a survey such as:

“I would rather engage in actions that help my child than engage in actions that would help me.”
“Those whom I encounter through my work and public life can assume that I will be there if they need me.”
“I would rather suffer myself than see someone else (a stranger) suffer.”

Taken together, the findings showed that children’s generosity is supported by the combination of their socialization experiences — their mothers’ compassionate love — and their physiological regulation, and that these work like “internal and external supports for the capacity to act prosocially that build on each other.”

The results were similar at ages 4 and 6.

In addition to observing the children’s propensity to donate their game earnings, the researchers observed that being more generous also seemed to benefit the children. At both ages 4 and 6, the physiological recording showed that children who donated more tokens were calmer after the activity, compared to the children who donated no or few tokens. They wrote that “prosocial behaviors may be intrinsically effective for soothing one’s own arousal.” Hastings suggested that “being in a calmer state after sharing could reinforce the generous behavior that produced that good feeling.”

This work was supported by the Fetzer Institute, Mindfulness Connections, and the National Institute of Mental Health.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California – Davis. Original written by Karen Nikos-Rose. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Jonas G. Miller, Sarah Kahle, Natalie R. Troxel, Paul D. Hastings. The Development of Generosity From 4 to 6 Years: Examining Stability and the Biopsychosocial Contributions of Children’s Vagal Flexibility and Mothers’ Compassion. Frontiers in Psychology, 2020; 11 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.590384

How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (NPR)

24/10/2020UncategorizedCanadá, Educação, Inuit, Povos indígenas, Violência, Violência juvenilrenzotaddei

Goats and Soda STORIES OF LIFE IN A CHANGING WORLD

The Other Side of Anger

March 13, 20199:01 AM ET

Michaeleen Doucleff and Jane Greenhalgh

For more than 30 years, the Inuit welcomed anthropologist Jean Briggs into their lives so she could study how they raise their children. Briggs is pictured during a 1974 visit to Baffin Island. Jean Briggs Collection / American Philosophical Society

Back in the 1960s, a Harvard graduate student made a landmark discovery about the nature of human anger.

At age 34, Jean Briggs traveled above the Arctic Circle and lived out on the tundra for 17 months. There were no roads, no heating systems, no grocery stores. Winter temperatures could easily dip below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Briggs persuaded an Inuit family to “adopt” her and “try to keep her alive,” as the anthropologist wrote in 1970.

At the time, many Inuit families lived similar to the way their ancestors had for thousands of years. They built igloos in the winter and tents in the summer. “And we ate only what the animals provided, such as fish, seal and caribou,” says Myna Ishulutak, a film producer and language teacher who lived a similar lifestyle as a young girl.

Briggs quickly realized something remarkable was going on in these families: The adults had an extraordinary ability to control their anger.

“They never acted in anger toward me, although they were angry with me an awful lot,” Briggs told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview.

Myna Ishulutak (upper right, in blue jacket) lived a seminomadic life as a child. Above: photos of the girl and her family in the hunting camp of Qipisa during the summer of 1974. Jean Briggs Collection / American Philosophical Society

Even just showing a smidgen of frustration or irritation was considered weak and childlike, Briggs observed.

For instance, one time someone knocked a boiling pot of tea across the igloo, damaging the ice floor. No one changed their expression. “Too bad,” the offender said calmly and went to refill the teapot.

In another instance, a fishing line — which had taken days to braid — immediately broke on the first use. No one flinched in anger. “Sew it together,” someone said quietly.

By contrast, Briggs seemed like a wild child, even though she was trying very hard to control her anger. “My ways were so much cruder, less considerate and more impulsive,” she told the CBC. “[I was] often impulsive in an antisocial sort of way. I would sulk or I would snap or I would do something that they never did.”

Briggs, who died in 2016, wrote up her observations in her first book, Never in Anger. But she was left with a lingering question: How do Inuit parents instill this ability in their children? How do Inuit take tantrum-prone toddlers and turn them into cool-headed adults?

Then in 1971, Briggs found a clue.

She was walking on a stony beach in the Arctic when she saw a young mother playing with her toddler — a little boy about 2 years old. The mom picked up a pebble and said, “‘Hit me! Go on. Hit me harder,'” Briggs remembered.

The boy threw the rock at his mother, and she exclaimed, “Ooooww. That hurts!”

Briggs was completely befuddled. The mom seemed to be teaching the child the opposite of what parents want. And her actions seemed to contradict everything Briggs knew about Inuit culture.

“I thought, ‘What is going on here?’ ” Briggs said in the radio interview.

Turns out, the mom was executing a powerful parenting tool to teach her child how to control his anger — and one of the most intriguing parenting strategies I’ve come across.

Iqaluit, pictured in winter, is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

No scolding, no timeouts

It’s early December in the Arctic town of Iqaluit, Canada. And at 2 p.m., the sun is already calling it a day. Outside, the temperature is a balmy minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. A light snow is swirling.

I’ve come to this seaside town, after reading Briggs’ book, in search of parenting wisdom, especially when it comes to teaching children to control their emotions. Right off the plane, I start collecting data.

I sit with elders in their 80s and 90s while they lunch on “country food” —stewed seal, frozen beluga whale and raw caribou. I talk with moms selling hand-sewn sealskin jackets at a high school craft fair. And I attend a parenting class, where day care instructors learn how their ancestors raised small children hundreds — perhaps even thousands — of years ago.

The elders of Iqaluit have lunch at the local senior center. On Thursdays, what they call “country food” is on the menu, things like caribou, seal and ptarmigan. Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

Across the board, all the moms mention one golden rule: Don’t shout or yell at small children.

Traditional Inuit parenting is incredibly nurturing and tender. If you took all the parenting styles around the world and ranked them by their gentleness, the Inuit approach would likely rank near the top.(They even have a special kiss for babies, where you put your nose against the cheek and sniff the skin.)

The culture views scolding — or even speaking to children in an angry voice — as inappropriate, says Lisa Ipeelie, a radio producer and mom who grew up with 12 siblings. “When they’re little, it doesn’t help to raise your voice,” she says. “It will just make your own heart rate go up.”

Even if the child hits you or bites you, there’s no raising your voice?

“No,” Ipeelie says with a giggle that seems to emphasize how silly my question is. “With little kids, you often think they’re pushing your buttons, but that’s not what’s going on. They’re upset about something, and you have to figure out what it is.”

Traditionally, the women and children in the community eat with an ulu knife. Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

Traditionally, the Inuit saw yelling at a small child as demeaning. It’s as if the adult is having a tantrum; it’s basically stooping to the level of the child, Briggs documented.

Elders I spoke with say intense colonization over the past century is damaging these traditions. And, so, the community is working hard to keep the parenting approach intact.

Goota Jaw is at the front line of this effort. She teaches the parenting class at the Arctic College. Her own parenting style is so gentle that she doesn’t even believe in giving a child a timeout for misbehaving.

“Shouting, ‘Think about what you just did. Go to your room!’ ” Jaw says. “I disagree with that. That’s not how we teach our children. Instead you are just teaching children to run away.”

And you are teaching them to be angry, says clinical psychologist and author Laura Markham. “When we yell at a child — or even threaten with something like ‘I’m starting to get angry,’ we’re training the child to yell,” says Markham. “We’re training them to yell when they get upset and that yelling solves problems.”

In contrast, parents who control their own anger are helping their children learn to do the same, Markham says. “Kids learn emotional regulation from us.”

I asked Markham if the Inuit’s no-yelling policy might be their first secret of raising cool-headed kids. “Absolutely,” she says.

Playing soccer with your head

Now at some level, all moms and dads know they shouldn’t yell at kids. But if you don’t scold or talk in an angry tone, how do you discipline? How do you keep your 3-year-old from running into the road? Or punching her big brother?

For thousands of years, the Inuit have relied on an ancient tool with an ingenious twist: “We use storytelling to discipline,” Jaw says.

Jaw isn’t talking about fairy tales, where a child needs to decipher the moral. These are oral stories passed down from one generation of Inuit to the next, designed to sculpt kids’ behaviors in the moment.Sometimes even save their lives.

For example, how do you teach kids to stay away from the ocean, where they could easily drown? Instead of yelling, “Don’t go near the water!” Jaw says Inuit parents take a pre-emptive approach and tell kids a special story about what’s inside the water. “It’s the sea monster,” Jaw says, with a giant pouch on its back just for little kids.

“If a child walks too close to the water, the monster will put you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out to another family,” Jaw says.

“Then we don’t need to yell at a child,” Jaw says, “because she is already getting the message.”

Inuit parents have an array of stories to help children learn respectful behavior, too. For example, to get kids to listen to their parents, there is a story about ear wax, says film producer Myna Ishulutak.

“My parents would check inside our ears, and if there was too much wax in there, it meant we were not listening,” she says.

And parents tell their kids: If you don’t ask before taking food, long fingers could reach out and grab you, Ishulutak says.

Inuit parents tell their children to beware of the northern lights. If you don’t wear your hat in the winter, they’ll say, the lights will come, take your head and use it as a soccer ball! Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

Then there’s the story of northern lights, which helps kids learn to keep their hats on in the winter.

“Our parents told us that if we went out without a hat, the northern lights are going to take your head off and use it as a soccer ball,” Ishulutak says. “We used to be so scared!” she exclaims and then erupts in laughter.

At first, these stories seemed to me a bit too scary for little children. And my knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss them. But my opinion flipped 180 degrees after I watched my own daughter’s response to similar tales — and after I learned more about humanity’s intricate relationship with storytelling.

Oral storytelling is what’s known as a human universal. For tens of thousands of years, it has been a key way that parents teach children about values and how to behave.

Modern hunter-gatherer groups use stories to teach sharing, respect for both genders and conflict avoidance, a recent study reported, after analyzing 89 stories from nine different tribes in Southeast Asia and Africa. With the Agta, a hunter-gatherer population of the Philippines, good storytelling skills are prized more than hunting skills or medicinal knowledge, the study found.

Today many American parents outsource their oral storytelling to screens. And in doing so, I wonder if we’re missing out on an easy — and effective — way of disciplining and changing behavior. Could small children be somehow “wired” to learn through stories?

Inuit parenting is gentle and tender. They even have a special kiss for kids called *kunik*. (Above) Maata Jaw gives her daughter the nose-to-cheek Inuit sniff. Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

“Well, I’d say kids learn well through narrative and explanations,” says psychologist Deena Weisberg at Villanova University, who studies how small children interpret fiction. “We learn best through things that are interesting to us. And stories, by their nature, can have lots of things in them that are much more interesting in a way that barestatements don’t.”

Stories with a dash of danger pull in kids like magnets, Weisberg says. And they turn a tension-ridden activity like disciplining into a playful interaction that’s — dare, I say it — fun.

“Don’t discount the playfulness of storytelling,” Weisberg says. “With stories, kids get to see stuff happen that doesn’t really happen in real life. Kids think that’s fun. Adults think it’s fun, too.”

Why don’t you hit me?

Inuit filmmaker and language teacher Myna Ishulutak as a little girl. Anthropologist Jean Briggs spent six months with the family in the 1970s documenting the child’s upbringing. Jean Briggs Collection / American Philosophical Society

Back up in Iqaluit, Myna Ishulutak is reminiscing about her childhood out on the land. She and her family lived in a hunting camp with about 60 other people. When she was a teenager, her family settled in a town.

“I miss living on the land so much,” she says as we eat a dinner of baked Arctic char. “We lived in a sod house. And when we woke up in the morning, everything would be frozen until we lit the oil lamp.”

I ask her if she’s familiar with the work of Jean Briggs. Her answer leaves me speechless.

Ishulutak reaches into her purse and brings out Briggs’ second book, Inuit Morality Play, which details the life of a 3-year-old girl dubbed Chubby Maata.

“This book is about me and my family,” Ishulutak says. “I am Chubby Maata.”

In the early 1970s, when Ishulutak was about 3 years old, her family welcomed Briggs into their home for six months and allowed her to study the intimate details of their child’s day-to-day life.

Myna Ishulutak today in Iqaluit, Canada. As the mother of two grown boys, she says, “When you’re shouting at them all the time they tend to kind of block you. So there’s a saying: ‘Never shout at them.’ ” Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

What Briggs documented is a central component to raising cool-headed kids.

When a child in the camp acted in anger — hit someone or had a tantrum — there was no punishment. Instead, the parents waited for the child to calm down and then, in a peaceful moment, did something that Shakespeare would understand all too well: They put on a drama. (As the Bard once wrote, “the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”)

“The idea is to give the child experiences that will lead the child to develop rational thinking,” Briggs told the CBC in 2011.

In a nutshell, the parent would act out what happened when the child misbehaved, including the real-life consequences of that behavior.

The parent always had a playful, fun tone. And typically the performance starts with a question, tempting the child to misbehave.

For example, if the child is hitting others, the mom may start a drama by asking: “Why don’t you hit me?”

Then the child has to think: “What should I do?” If the child takes the bait and hits the mom, she doesn’t scold or yell but instead acts out the consequences. “Ow, that hurts!” she might exclaim.

The mom continues to emphasize the consequences by asking a follow-up question. For example: “Don’t you like me?” or “Are you a baby?” She is getting across the idea that hitting hurts people’s feelings, and “big girls” wouldn’t hit. But, again, all questions are asked with a hint of playfulness.

The parent repeats the drama from time to time until the child stops hitting the mom during the dramas and the misbehavior ends.

Ishulutak says these dramas teach children not to be provoked easily. “They teach you to be strong emotionally,” she says, “to not take everything so seriously or to be scared of teasing.”

Psychologist Peggy Miller, at the University of Illinois, agrees: “When you’re little, you learn that people will provoke you, and these dramas teach you to think and maintain some equilibrium.”

In other words, the dramas offer kids a chance to practice controlling their anger, Miller says, during times when they’re not actually angry.

This practice is likely critical for children learning to control their anger. Because here’s the thing about anger: Once someone is already angry, it is not easy for that person to squelch it — even for adults.

“When you try to control or change your emotions in the moment, that’s a really hard thing to do,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University who studies how emotions work.

But if you practice having a different response or a different emotion at times when you’re not angry, you’ll have a better chance of managing your anger in those hot-button moments, Feldman Barrett says.

“That practice is essentially helping to rewire your brain to be able to make a different emotion [besides anger] much more easily,” she says.

This emotional practice may be even more important for children, says psychologist Markham, because kids’ brains are still developing the circuitry needed for self-control.

“Children have all kinds of big emotions,” she says. “They don’t have much prefrontal cortex yet. So what we do in responding to our child’s emotions shapes their brain.”

A lot has changed in the Arctic since the Canadian government forced Inuit families to settle in towns. But the community is trying to preserve traditional parenting practices. Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

Markham recommends an approach close to that used by Inuit parents. When the kid misbehaves, she suggests, wait until everyone is calm. Then in a peaceful moment, go over what happened with the child. You can simply tell them the story about what occurred or use two stuffed animals to act it out.

“Those approaches develop self-control,” Markham says.

Just be sure you do two things when you replay the misbehavior, she says. First, keep the child involved by asking many questions. For example, if the child has a hitting problem, you might stop midway through the puppet show and ask,”Bobby, wants to hit right now. Should he?”

Second, be sure to keep it fun. Many parents overlook play as a tool for discipline, Markham says. But fantasy play offers oodles of opportunities to teach children proper behavior.

“Play is their work,” Markham says. “That’s how they learn about the world and about their experiences.”

Which seems to be something the Inuit have known for hundreds, perhaps even, thousands of years.

Inuit parents value the playful side of kids even when disciplining them. Above: Maata Jaw and daughter. Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR

This story is part of a series from NPR’s Science desk called The Other Side of Anger. There’s no question we are in angry times. It’s in our politics, our schools and homes. Anger can be a destructive emotion, but it can also be a positive force.

Join NPR in our exploration of anger and what we can learn from this powerful emotion. Read and listen to stories in the series here.

Apesar de efeitos negativos, pandemia deixa legado de solidariedade, dizem líderes comunitários (Folha de S.Paulo)

02/10/2020UncategorizedCOVID-19, Desigualdade, Educação, Fome, População em situação de vulnerabilidade, Solidariedaderenzotaddei

www1.folha.uol.com.br

Cresce preocupação com educação em comunidades pobres de grandes cidades

Thiago Amâncio, 20 de setembro de 2020

Apesar de pessimistas com o legado negativo de alto desemprego e fome que a pandemia da Covid-19 pode deixar, líderes de comunidades pobres país afora se dizem esperançosos com a solidariedade criada nesses lugares após a chegada da doença.

É o que aponta levantamento feito entre 17 e 30 de agosto pela Rede de Pesquisa Solidária, que monitora as respostas à Covid pelo país. É a quarta rodada de uma enquete feita com 64 lideranças comunitárias nas regiões metropolitanas de Manaus, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Rio, São Paulo, Distrito Federal, Campinas (SP), Salvador, Joinville (SC) e Maringá (PR).

“Quando perguntamos sobre perspectiva para o futuro, houve essa percepção de que a pandemia gerou engajamento, foi uma surpresa para nós. Por um lado, é efeito de uma constatação negativa: as pessoas se sentiram abandonadas e aprenderam que tiveram que se reestruturar para reagir à pandemia”, diz Graziela Castello, diretora-administrativa e pesquisadora do Cebrap.

“Moradores que não tinham história de associativismo, relação com sindicato, com partido, começaram a se organizar. Dos entrevistados, 16%, acham que gerou algum tipo de consciência política na população e que a gestão da pandemia provocou a necessidade de avaliar o governo, pensar nas eleições. Dentro do cenário de abandono completo, talvez tenha impacto positivo de maior prática de cidadania política”, continua.

O principal problema apontado pelas lideranças, no entanto, ainda é a segurança alimentar: 62% dos entrevistados disseram se preocupar com a fome provocada pela pandemia. A falta de trabalho também foi citada por metade dos ouvidos.

Uma outra questão despontou no último questionário feito: a preocupação com a educação. Um em cada cinco entrevistados citou a volta às aulas como um dos problemas mais críticos atualmente.

E aí os líderes se dividem: parte deles se preocupa que o retorno das crianças às escolas possa aumentar a contaminação dentro das comunidades; outra parte se preocupa com o pouco acesso das crianças e adolescentes a ferramentas de ensino remoto, prejudicando a aprendizagem.

“Os familiares são terrivelmente contra o retorno às aulas, mesmo porque se trata de um governo e de um prefeito que não investiu na saúde, não fez um investimento na preparação da volta às aulas, nas salas de aula. Segundo, o governo e o prefeito lá vão colocar um frasco de álcool em gel e um ventilador para fazer a ventilação, e [afirmam que] isso é o suficiente para espantar o vírus. A gente sabe que precisa de um investimento muito maior do que isso”, diz um entrevistado do Tucuruvi, zona norte de São Paulo.

“As famílias não têm internet, telefone, computador em casa. E as crianças estão sem estudar, sem escola. E devido a essa situação elas ficam em casa sem fazer nada. Tem mães analfabetas que não sabem explicar e ajudar nas atividades, ficou muito difícil nas comunidades”, diz outro na Brasilândia, também em São Paulo.

Para Castello, “a diversidade de opiniões mostra o drama que é gerenciar essa situação”, diz. “De um lado, tem o medo da volta às aulas, do impacto nos parentes mais velhos, a preocupação de que as escolas não estão preparadas para voltar. Do outro lado, as lideranças apontam deficiências cognitivas, depressão nas crianças, todo esse processo que o distanciamento tem gerado.”

“As duas coisas são muito perversas. Os pais lidam com o medo da volta e com a impossibilidade da manutenção em casa”, diz a pesquisadora.

A Rede de Pesquisa Solidária reúne dezenas de pesquisadores de instituições públicas e privadas, como a USP, o Cebrap (Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento) e a Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV). Desde abril, eles têm produzido boletins semanais, que estão disponíveis no site da iniciativa.

Ensino de História em Portugal perpetua mito do ‘bom colonizador’ e banaliza escravidão, diz pesquisadora (BBC)

09/09/2020UncategorizedColonialismo, Educação, História, Portugal, Racismorenzotaddei

Luis Barrucho – Da BBC Brasil em Londres

31 julho 2017

Jean-Baptiste Debret. Pintura do francês Jean-Baptiste Debret de 1826 retrata escravos no Brasil.

“De igual modo, em virtude dos descobrimentos, movimentaram-se povos para outros continentes (sobretudo europeus e escravos africanos).”

É dessa forma – “como se os negros tivessem optado por emigrar em vez de terem sido levados à força” – que o colonialismo ainda é ensinado em Portugal.

Quem critica é a portuguesa Marta Araújo, pesquisadora principal do Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) da Universidade de Coimbra.

De setembro de 2008 a fevereiro de 2012, ela coordenou uma minuciosa pesquisa ao fim da qual concluiu que os livros didáticos do país “escondem o racismo no colonialismo português e naturalizam a escravatura”.

Além disso, segundo Araújo, “persiste até hoje a visão romântica de que cumprimos uma missão civilizatória, ou seja, de que fomos bons colonizadores, mais benevolentes do que outros povos europeus”.

“A escravatura não ocupa mais de duas ou três páginas nesses livros, sendo tratada de forma vaga e superficial. Também propagam ideias tortuosas. Por exemplo, quando falam sobre as consequências da escravatura, o único país a ganhar maior destaque é o Brasil e mesmo assim para falar sobre a miscigenação”, explica.

“Por trás disso, está o propósito de destacar a suposta multirracialidade da nossa maior colônia que, neste sentido, seria um exemplo do sucesso das políticas de miscigenação. Na prática, porém, sabemos que isso não ocorreu da forma como é tratada”, questiona.

Araújo diz que “nada mudou” desde 2012 e argumenta que a falta de compreensão sobre o assunto traz prejuízos.

“Essa narrativa gera uma série de consequências, desde a menor coleta de dados sobre a discriminação étnico-racial até a própria não admissão de que temos um problema de racismo”, afirma.

Jean-Baptiste Debret Image. Segundo Araújo, livros didáticos portugueses continuam a apregoar visão “romântica” sobre colonialismo português

‘Vítimas passivas?’

Para realizar a pesquisa, Araújo contou com a ajuda de outros pesquisadores. O foco principal foi a análise dos cinco livros didáticos de História mais vendidos no país para alunos do chamado 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (12 a 14 anos), que compreende do 7º ao 9º ano.

Além disso, a equipe também examinou políticas públicas, entrevistou historiadores e educadores, assistiu a aulas e conduziu workshops com estudantes.

Em um deles, as pesquisadoras presenciaram uma cena que chamou a atenção, lembra Araújo.

Na ocasião, os alunos ficaram surpresos ao saber de revoltas das próprias populações escravizadas. E também sobre o verdadeiro significado dos quilombos ─ destino dos escravos que fugiam, normalmente locais escondidos e fortificados no meio das matas.

“Em outros países, há uma abertura muito maior para discutir como essas populações lutavam contra a opressão. Mas, no caso português, os alunos nem sequer poderiam imaginar que eles se libertavam sozinhos e continuavam a acreditar que todos eram vítimas passivas da situação. É uma ideia muito resignada”, diz.

Araújo destaca que nos livros analisados “não há nenhuma alusão à Revolução do Haiti (conflito sangrento que culminou na abolição da escravidão e na independência do país, que passou a ser a primeira república governada por pessoas de ascendência africana)”.

Já os quilombos são representados, acrescenta a pesquisadora, como “locais onde os negros dançavam em um dia de festa”.

“Como resultado, essas versões acabam sendo consensualizadas e não levantam as polêmicas necessárias para problematizarmos o ensino da História da África.”

‘Visão romântica’

Araújo diz que, diferentemente de outros países, os livros didáticos portugueses continuam a apregoar uma visão “romântica” sobre o colonialismo português.

“Perdura a narrativa de que nosso colonialismo foi um colonialismo amigável, do qual resultaram sociedades multiculturais e multirraciais – e o Brasil seria um exemplo”, diz.

Ironicamente, contudo, outras potências colonizadoras daquele tempo não são retratadas de igual forma, observa ela.

“Quando falamos da descoberta das Américas, os espanhóis são descritos como extremamente violentos sempre em contraste com a suposta benevolência do colonialismo português. Já os impérios francês, britânico e belga são tachados de racistas”, assinala.

“Por outro lado, nunca se fala da questão racial em relação ao colonialismo português. Há despolitização crescente. Os livros didáticos holandeses, por exemplo, atribuem a escravatura aos portugueses”, acrescenta.

Segundo ela, essa ideia da “benevolência do colonizador português” acabou encontrando eco no luso-tropicalismo, tese desenvolvida pelo cientista social brasileiro Gilberto Freire sobre a relação de Portugal com os trópicos.

Em linhas gerais, Freire defendia que a capacidade do português de se relacionar com os trópicos ─ não por interesse político ou econômico, mas por suposta empatia inata ─ resultaria de sua própria origem ética híbrida, da sua bicontinentalidade e do longo contato com mouros e judeus na Península Ibérica.

Apesar de rejeitado pelo Estado Novo de Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945), por causa da importância que conferia à miscigenação e à interpenetração de culturas, o luso-tropicalismo ganhou força como peça de propaganda durante a ditadura do português António de Oliveira Salazar (1932-1968). Uma versão simplificada e nacionalista da tese acabou guiando a política externa do regime.

“Ocorre que a questão racial nunca foi debatida em Portugal”, ressalta Araújo. Direito de imagem Marta Araújo Image caption Livro didático português diz que escravos africanos “movimentaram-se para outros continentes”

‘Sem resposta’

A pesquisadora alega que enviou os resultados da pesquisa ao Ministério da Educação português, mas nunca obteve resposta.

“Nossa percepção é que os responsáveis acreditam que tudo está bem assim e que medidas paliativas, como festivais culturais sazonais, podem substituir a problematização de um assunto tão importante”, critica.

Nesse sentido, Araújo elogia a iniciativa brasileira de 2003 que tornou obrigatório o ensino da história e cultura afro-brasileira e indígena em todas as escolas, públicas e particulares, do ensino fundamental até o ensino médio.

“Precisamos combater o racismo, mas isso não será possível se não mudarmos a forma como ensinamos nossa História”, conclui.

Procurado pela BBC Brasil, o Ministério da Educação português não havia respondido até a publicação desta reportagem.

Volta às aulas após quarentena: veja 10 medidas adotadas em 7 países para a retomada do ensino (G1)

29/05/2020UncategorizedCOVID-19, Educação, Epidemia, Políticas públicas, Prevençãorenzotaddei

g1.globo.com

G1, 29 de maio de 2020

Alunos do ensino médio voltam à sala de aula em Wuham, província de Hubei, na China, nesta quarta-feira (6). Fonte: AFP.

Após decretarem o afrouxamento do isolamento social para conter a transmissão do novo coronavírus, países que estão voltando às aulas adotam medidas de prevenção para evitar uma nova onda de contaminação.

O G1 analisou a experiência de países como China, Coreia do Sul, Dinamarca, Finlândia, França, Portugal e Israel para saber quais cuidados estão sendo tomados na volta às aulas. No Brasil, as aulas estão suspensas em todos os estados e as escolas seguem fechadas.

Entre as medidas, estão:

desinfecção de escolas
tendas de desinfecção dos alunos na entrada
controle de temperatura
uso de máscaras
lavagem de mãos e instalação de torneiras
grupos menores de alunos
distanciamento
horários diferentes de entrada e saída
arejar a sala
afastar professores do grupo de risco

A reabertura das escolas é um marco no fim do isolamento porque permite que os pais possam voltar ao mercado de trabalho. Apesar dos esforços, ao menos dois dos países analisados voltaram a registrar casos de transmissão de coronavírus: Coreia do Sul e França.

Na Coreia do Sul, mais de 200 escolas foram fechadas nesta sexta-feira (29) dias após reabrirem, devido ao surgimento de novos casos de contaminação. Com isso, Seul adotou novas medidas para evitar a transmissão de casos, como limitar o número de alunos por sala, enquanto os demais ficam em casa, aprendendo por atividades remotas.

Na França, 40 mil escolas foram reabertas no início de maio. Uma semana depois, 70 registraram casos de coronavírus e tiveram que ser fechadas.

As regras de confinamento impostas para conter o avanço da disseminação do novo coronavírus deixaram mais de 1,5 bilhão de crianças e adolescentes fora da escola em 188 países, segundo balanço da Unesco divulgado em abril.

Desinfecção de escolas

20 de maio – trabalhador desinfeta escola em Parque Ivory, na África do Sul. — Foto: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Medidas extras de limpeza são uma recomendação comum. Em diversas partes do mundo, a desinfecção das escolas ocorre antes dos alunos chegarem e durante a permanência deles.

Em Portugal, 17 mil litros de desinfetantes e outros equipamentos de proteção e higiene foram distribuídos para centros educacionais.

Na França, as orientações do Ministério da Educação contêm inclusive quais produtos a serem utilizados para desinfecção das escolas e a frequência da higienização: o chão deve ser limpo uma vez por dia enquanto maçanetas, sanitários e interruptores devem ser higienizados várias vezes.

Tenda de desinfecção dos alunos

China tem volta às aulas do ensino médio com medidas de segurança e medo do coronavírus. — Foto: GREG BAKER / AFP

Na China, escolas instalaram tendas de desinfecção por onde os estudantes precisam passar antes de entrarem na escola.

Controle de temperatura

Termômetro usado para medir a temperatura das pessoas e fazer controle da Covid-19.. — Foto: Steve Parsons / Pool / AFP

O controle da temperatura para detectar se o aluno está com febre, um dos mais comuns sintomas da Covid-19, é uma preocupação em vários países.

Em Pequim,pulseiras inteligentes, que fazem essa medição em tempo real, estão sendo testadas. Os pais monitoram a situação por meio de um aplicativo. Caso a temperatura passe de 37ºC, um alerta é enviado para os professores, que são orientados a alertar a polícia.

Uso de máscara

China retoma aulas do ensino médio em Pequim e Xangai nesta segunda-feira (27). — Foto: GREG BAKER / AFP

O uso de máscaras em geral também é recomendado, mas os critérios variam de país para país.

Na China, as crianças utilizam máscaras o tempo todo, inclusive dentro da sala de aula.

Coronavírus na educação: na França, professora leciona com máscara nesta segunda-feira (18). — Foto: Sebastien Bozon/AFP

Em Israel, as crianças da 4ª série em diante tem que usar essa proteção. Na França, as crianças menores também estão dispensadas. No entanto, a escola deve ter máscaras à disposição dos alunos caso eles apresentem sintomas durante as aulas e estejam aguardando para serem retirados.

Uma exceção é a Dinamarca, país onde não existe a recomendação para utilização de máscaras em ambientes públicos.

Lavagem de mãos e instalação de torneiras

Crianças lavam as mãos na escola Gudenåskolen, na Dinamarca — Foto: Lone Mathiesen/ Divulgação/ Embaixada da Dinamarca no Brasil

O incentivo à higiene e lavagem de mãos está sendo constante nas escolas que voltam às aulas.

Na Dinamarca, as escolas chegaram a instalar torneiras fora dos edifícios para que as crianças lavem as mãos quando chegam à escola.

Em Portugal, é obrigatório a lavagem das mãos ao entrar e sair da escola. Na Coreia do Sul, os estudantes receberam material desinfetante para higienizar as mãos.

Grupos menores de alunos

18 de maio de 2020 – Alunos usam máscara em sala de aula no colégio D. Pedro V, em Lisboa, no dia em que parte dos estudantes volta a ter aula em meio à pandemia do novo coronavírus (COVID-19) em Portugal — Foto: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

Alguns países adotaram a medida de dividir os estudantes em grupos menores para evitar contatos mais próximos entre eles, como na Finlândia.

Na Dinamarca, as turmas, que têm entre 20 e 28 alunos, foram divididas para que os alunos possam interagir apenas dentro desse espectro menor.

Em Seul, na Coreia do Sul, os jardins de infância e escolas do ensino básico, fundamental e médio poderão receber apenas um aluno a cada três e os demais terão que seguir com o ensino a distância.

Distanciamento

Em geral, as salas de aula foram reorganizadas de maneira que as mesas dos alunos fiquem a pelo menos um metro de distância entre elas. A recomendação é feita pelo governos da França, Dinamarca. Em Israel, essa distância é de dois metros.

Na Dinamarca, além da distância de um metro entre as mesas dos alunos, o professor deve ficar a dois metros do estudante que senta mais próximo dele.

Alguns países adotam inclusive paredes acrílicas para evitar que gotículas da fala sejam trocadas entre os estudantes e entre estudantes e professores, como é o caso da Coreia do Sul.

Alunos retomam aulas na Coreia do Sul; em algumas escolas, carteiras têm divisórias — Foto: Yonhap / AFP Photo

Para estudantes menores, mantê-los afastados é um desafio. Uma solução lúdica, feita com asas de papelão, foi adotada na província de Shanxi, na China, para lembrá-los a distância que precisam ficar uns dos outros.

Alunos do ensino fundamental usam asas para manter o distanciamento na sala de aula em Taiyuan, na província de Shanxi, no norte da China. Foto tirada em 20 de maio de 2020 — Foto: AFP

Horários diferentes de entrada e saída

Em Portugal, alunos estão sendo organizados em grupos que terão horários de aula, intervalos e períodos de alimentação diferentes entre si, para minimizar o contato.

A mesma medida foi adotada pelos governo da Finlândia e Israel, que determinaram o estabelecimento de horários diferentes para intervalos, entrada e saída para evitar aglomeração.

Na Dinamarca, além dos horários variados, novos portões estão sendo utilizados para que a entrada e saída dos grupos não coincidam. Os pais também são orientados a se despedir dos filhos fora da escola e devem pedir permissão, caso necessitem entrar no estabelecimento.

Arejar a sala

Na França, as escolas são orientadas a manter as janelas abertas antes das aulas, durante o intervalo e depois da partida dos alunos.

Afastamento de professores do grupo de risco

27 de abril – Médicos de um hospital coletam amostras de professores do ensino médio para testes em uma escola após o surto da doença por coronavírus em Yichang, província de Hubei, na China — Foto: China Daily via Reuters

Em Israel, professoras com mais de 65 anos não retomaram as atividades. A medida é para evitar que eles fiquem expostos à uma possível nova onda de circulação do coronavírus.

Se os adultos não estragarem as coisas, o COVID-19 pode ter efeito positivo na vida política do Brasil

06/05/2020UncategorizedCOVID-19, Educação, Infância, Política, Psicologiarenzotaddei

Renzo Taddei – 25 de março de 2020

Hoje, pela manhã, em conversa por WhatsApp com parentes quarentenados, ao falarmos sobre o pronunciamento do Bolsonaro da noite de ontem, um adolescente da família postou um emoticon de careta e disparou: “qual o problema desse cara?” Mais tarde, encontrei nas redes sociais vídeo postado por um grande amigo argentino, Hugo Partucci, em que ele toca, ao violão, canção composta por seu grupo artístico há alguns anos, e que fala de um adulto que, vivendo a perseguição política da ditadura argentina, coloca uma criança para dormir e deseja a ela que tenha bons sonhos. De repente, numa dessas associações de ideias que aparecem de forma espontânea na mente, ocorreu-me que, se nós, adultos, não estragarmos as coisas, o COVID-19 pode melhorar tremendamente a vida política do Brasil.

A ideia, algo contra intuitiva, reconheço, é a seguinte: as pessoas da minha geração (tenho 47), com margem de variação de menos ou mais quinze anos, viram as coisas darem mais ou menos certo da forma bastante errada na política brasileira, e com isso desenvolveram uma atitude cínica com relação ao processo político, de maneira geral. Este cinismo se manifesta, de forma explícita ou nas profundezas do subconsciente, no pensamento algo recorrente que diz que eleições não servem pra nada, que são um imenso teatro para manter as mesmas elites de sempre no poder. Com o Bolsonaro no Planalto, se a juventude entender o que está acontecendo sem herdar nossos vícios de pensamento e nossas emoções apodrecidas, as coisas podem mudar. Que criança ou jovem que tenha memória, no futuro, do que está acontecendo agora vai pensar que as eleições não são importantes? Ocorre, no entanto, que podemos estragar tudo se não tivermos cuidado.

Quando digo que as coisas deram certo da forma errada, refiro-me especificamente ao fato de que no Brasil, desde o fim da ditadura, as coisas caminham mas nunca segundo as aspirações da população. O país se redemocratizou, mas o movimentos Diretas Já não teve sucesso; posteriormente, o processo democrático se estruturou de forma lenta e insegura, com Sarney, Collor, Itamar e FHC, sem que as elites que defendem políticas excludentes tivessem arredado pé do governo por um segundo sequer. O consolo vinha sempre na forma do mantra “O Brasil é uma democracia jovem”. Com o PT no governo, as ânsias e desejos do passado se reascenderam; houve um período de êxtase na juventude progressista, enquanto o Lula distribuía o excedente do dinheiro do pré-sal, associava-se aos banqueiros e não fazia as reformas necessárias nem uma distribuição de renda estrutural e efetiva. Quando a coisa toda desmoronou, veio junto o que restava de esperança naquela geração de jovens no processo político. Sobrou desesperança e amargura, mesmo que em um país mais rico, mais educado e menos desigual do que há 30 anos.

Tenho amigos e parentes que, antilulisticamente, ajudaram a colocar o Bolsonaro no poder. A grande maioria parou de dizer “ah, mais no tempo do PT…” quando o governo Bolsonaro começou a patinar no seu tratamento da epidemia. Depois do pronunciamento de ontem, praticamente todos eles estão gritando “impeachment” nas redes sociais. E o que está fazendo a maioria dos que sempre foram mais politicamente alinhados comigo? Está postando mensagens de ódio, do tipo “deixa eu avisar que eu lembro de cada pessoa da minha lista de contatos que votou no Bolsonaro”, ou inserindo a expressão “eu avisei” nos seus nomes, em seus perfis de redes sociais. Até ontem, isso não me espantava. Hoje de manhã ocorreu-me que podemos estrar estragando a única oportunidade que nos resta de ver o processo político melhorar.

Em que contexto político um grupo vê o rival mudar para o seu lado, e ao invés de congratular-se, reage com ódio? Nossa geração está destruindo o pouco que sobrou da política – com ajuda dos algoritmos das redes sociais, sem dúvida. Em algum momento paramos de fazer política, aquela estruturada ao redor da ideia de que os outros têm direito de pensar diferente e a melhor forma de lidar com isso é exatamente que eles venham dizer isso na nossa cara, e escutem o que temos a dizer a respeito. O processo político virou a válvula de escape de nossas frustrações e da nossa raiva. No processo eleitoral, parecia que os antipestistas eram os que estavam votando com o sistema digestivo. Depois das eleições, aparentemente todo o país passou a viver a política de forma gástrica, e nada mais. A reação mais natural, por ser espontânea e porque já a naturalizamos, é insultar o Bolsonaro quando temos que mencionar o seu nome.

Ocorre, no entanto, que isso pode ter consequências terríveis a longo prazo. Mudemos um pouco a perspectiva da cena: saia dos teus olhos e entre nos da criança que te observa, enquanto você, aos brados, diz que o presidente é um jumento, um palhaço, um imbecil, um retardado, uma pilha de esterco, um psicopata, um monstro, um assassino, um genocida. O que você acha que está acontecendo no pensamento desta criança?

Se há lições a serem aprendidas com o COVID-19, acredito que uma das mais importantes não seja para a nossa geração, mas para a das crianças e jovens. Se eles entenderem que o que causou isso, de forma mais imediata, foi o voto, e que é pelo voto que isso pode ser evitado, jamais terão atitude cínica como a nossa. O processo democrático no futuro será mais maduro e verdadeiro.

Só não vai acontecer se contaminarmos a percepção que os jovens têm da política, com tanto refluxo verbal, de modo que eles não sejam capazes de perceber que o momento atual mostra, com clareza que minha geração nunca teve, o valor que o voto tem. É preciso que admitamos, então, nossas limitações, para que possamos ajudar as crianças e jovens a construírem realidade melhor do que a nossa.

Para tanto, é preciso tratar dos sentimentos que temos dentro de nós, sobre o governo, sobre o papel que o estado-nação tem em nossas vidas, sobre a forma como nos fizemos dependentes e vulneráveis a coisas que não controlamos; precisamos tentar aprender com quem vive de forma mais autônoma, livre e em paz, e precisamos trabalhar para que a relação entre o estado e as pessoas seja mais saudável no futuro. É possível que não sejamos mais capazes de consertar isso; o que estou argumentando aqui é que talvez nossos filhos o sejam, e não devemos atrapalhá-los com nossas limitações. O elemento mais inconveniente do fato de que nossa reação às ações do Bolsonaro é gastrointestinal é não conseguirmos fazer efetivamente nada que mude as coisas com isso. Há, inclusive, a possibilidade de que isso seja estratégia bolsonarista. Quem consegue pensar de forma politicamente estratégica, hoje, não está dando chilique.

Isso tudo passa, a meu ver, por não alienar os jovens do que está acontecendo, no sentido de “protegê-los”. Quando fazemos isso, estamos apenas materializando o pensamento de que eles não poderão ser melhores do que somos e fomos. Quem pensa assim não está colocando a devida atenção em quem são as crianças e jovens de hoje. Ao invés de pautar sua compreensão da realidade pelo programa do Datena ou do Ratinho, olhe ao seu redor, escute as conversas das crianças e jovens, e compare com o que éramos a três ou quatro décadas. Tenho a impressão forte de que muita gente nesta geração nova é mais capaz de empatia, de colaboração, de amor e de perdão do que éramos (e somos).

É preciso encontrar formas de fazer os jovens entenderem o que está acontecendo sem repetir neles nossas limitações emocionais, nossa incapacidade de manter a serenidade, nossos traumas. Por isso, antes de falar aos jovens sobre o que deveria estar acontecendo e não está, tomemos o tempo de tentar analisar o que se passa com nossas emoções, com nossa necessidade de descarregar as emoções negativas através da política (o que aniquila a capacidade da política ser tudo o que poderia). E trata-se mais de postura afetiva do que de ação: podemos e devemos bater panela, assinar petições pedindo o impeachment, participar de manifestações de rua quando o perigo do COVID-19 estiver controlado, e estarmos preparados para a desobediência civil. Mas agindo com a cabeça, e não com os intestinos. Crianças e jovens são imensamente capazes de perceber o que nos move, e isso pode deixar neles marca profunda, positiva ou negativa.

Se fizermos isso tudo – o que vai tomar algum tempo e não vai ser fácil -, podemos pelo menos contribuir para a formação de uma nova geração que será imensamente mais capaz de viver em comunidade e resolver seus problemas de forma pacífica e colaborativa. O ponto central do meu pensamento, entenda-se bem, não é transferir aos jovens a responsabilidade de resolver algo que não fomos capazes. É apenas aproveitar a intervenção drástica e em escala planetária do COVID-19 para que tratemos nossas feridas politico-emocionais, e sejamos capazes de deixar que a crise seja uma lição de crescimento civilizacional para crianças e jovens. Se isso vai ser amargo ou sereno para eles, depende muito de como nossas emoções embotadas afetarão a mensagem.

Climate Science Meets a Stubborn Obstacle: Students (New York Times)

05/06/2017Uncategorizedciência, Conservadorismo, Educação, Estados Unidos, Mudanças climáticas, Negacionismo, Religião, Trumprenzotaddei

By AMY HARMON

JUNE 4, 2017

Gwen Beatty in James Sutter’s classroom at Wellston High School in Ohio, where she and Mr. Sutter butted heads over the issue of human-caused climate change. Credit: Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

WELLSTON, Ohio — To Gwen Beatty, a junior at the high school in this proud, struggling, Trump-supporting town, the new science teacher’s lessons on climate change seemed explicitly designed to provoke her.

So she provoked him back.

When the teacher, James Sutter, ascribed the recent warming of the Earth to heat-trapping gases released by burning fossil fuels like the coal her father had once mined, she asserted that it could be a result of other, natural causes.

When he described the flooding, droughts and fierce storms that scientists predict within the century if such carbon emissions are not sharply reduced, she challenged him to prove it. “Scientists are wrong all the time,” she said with a shrug, echoing those celebrating President Trump’s announcement last week that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

When Mr. Sutter lamented that information about climate change had been removed from the White House website after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, she rolled her eyes.

“It’s his website,” she said.

Mr. Sutter during his Advanced Placement environmental science class. He was hired from a program that recruits science professionals into teaching. Credit: Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

For his part, Mr. Sutter occasionally fell short of his goal of providing Gwen — the most vocal of a raft of student climate skeptics — with calm, evidence-based responses. “Why would I lie to you?” he demanded one morning. “It’s not like I’m making a lot of money here.”

She was, he knew, a straight-A student. She would have had no trouble comprehending the evidence, embedded in ancient tree rings, ice, leaves and shells, as well as sophisticated computer models, that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the chief culprit when it comes to warming the world. Or the graph he showed of how sharply it has spiked since the Industrial Revolution, when humans began pumping vast quantities of it into the air.

Thinking it a useful soothing device, Mr. Sutter assented to Gwen’s request that she be allowed to sand the bark off the sections of wood he used to illustrate tree rings during class. When she did so with an energy that, classmates said, increased during discussion points with which she disagreed, he let it go.

When she insisted that teachers “are supposed to be open to opinions,” however, Mr. Sutter held his ground.

“It’s not about opinions,” he told her. “It’s about the evidence.”

“It’s like you can’t disagree with a scientist or you’re ‘denying science,”’ she sniffed to her friends.

Gwen, 17, could not put her finger on why she found Mr. Sutter, whose biology class she had enjoyed, suddenly so insufferable. Mr. Sutter, sensing that his facts and figures were not helping, was at a loss. And the day she grew so agitated by a documentary he was showing that she bolted out of the school left them both shaken.

“I have a runner,” Mr. Sutter called down to the office, switching off the video.

He had chosen the video, an episode from an Emmy-winning series that featured a Christian climate activist and high production values, as a counterpoint to another of Gwen’s objections, that a belief in climate change does not jibe with Christianity.

“It was just so biased toward saying climate change is real,” she said later, trying to explain her flight. “And that all these people that I pretty much am like are wrong and stupid.”

Classroom Culture Wars

As more of the nation’s teachers seek to integrate climate science into the curriculum, many of them are reckoning with students for whom suspicion of the subject is deeply rooted.

In rural Wellston, a former coal and manufacturing town seeking its next act, rejecting the key findings of climate science can seem like a matter of loyalty to a way of life already under siege. Originally tied, perhaps, to economic self-interest, climate skepticism has itself become a proxy for conservative ideals of hard work, small government and what people here call “self-sustainability.”

A tractor near Wellston, an area where coal and manufacturing were once the primary employment opportunities. Credit: Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Assiduously promoted by fossil fuel interests, that powerful link to a collective worldview largely explains why just 22 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters in a 2016 poll said they believed that human activity is warming the planet, compared with half of all registered voters. And the prevailing outlook among his base may in turn have facilitated the president’s move to withdraw from the global agreement to battle rising temperatures.

“What people ‘believe’ about global warming doesn’t reflect what they know,” Dan Kahan, a Yale researcher who studies political polarization, has stressed in talks, papers and blog posts. “It expresses who they are.”

But public-school science classrooms are also proving to be a rare place where views on climate change may shift, research has found. There, in contrast with much of adult life, it can be hard to entirely tune out new information.

“Adolescents are still heavily influenced by their parents, but they’re also figuring themselves out,” said Kathryn Stevenson, a researcher at North Carolina State University who studies climate literacy.

Gwen’s father died when she was young, and her mother and uncle, both Trump supporters, doubt climate change as much as she does.

“If she was in math class and teacher told her two plus two equals four and she argued with him about that, I would say she’s wrong,” said her uncle, Mark Beatty. “But no one knows if she’s wrong.”

As Gwen clashed with her teacher over the notion of human-caused climate change, one of her best friends, Jacynda Patton, was still circling the taboo subject. “I learned some stuff, that’s all,’’ Jacynda told Gwen, on whom she often relied to supply the $2.40 for school lunch that she could not otherwise afford.

Jacynda Patton, right, during Mr. Sutter’s class. “I thought it would be an easy A,” she said. “It wasn’t.”Credit: Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Hired a year earlier, Mr. Sutter was the first science teacher at Wellston to emphasize climate science. He happened to do so at a time when the mounting evidence of the toll that global warming is likely to take, and the Trump administration’s considerable efforts to discredit those findings, are drawing new attention to the classroom from both sides of the nation’s culture war.

Since March, the Heartland Institute, a think tank that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, has sent tens of thousands of science teachers a book of misinformation titled “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,” in an effort to influence “the next generation of thought,” said Joseph Bast, the group’s chief executive.

The Alliance for Climate Education, which runs assemblies based on the consensus science for high schools across the country, received new funding from a donor who sees teenagers as the best means of reaching and influencing their parents.

Idaho, however, this year joined several other states that have declined to adopt new science standards that emphasize the role human activities play in climate change.

At Wellston, where most students live below the poverty line and the needle-strewn bike path that abuts the marching band’s practice field is known as “heroin highway,” climate change is not regarded as the most pressing issue. And since most Wellston graduates typically do not go on to obtain a four-year college degree, this may be the only chance many of them have to study the impact of global warming.

But Mr. Sutter’s classroom shows how curriculum can sometimes influence culture on a subject that stands to have a more profound impact on today’s high schoolers than their parents.

“I thought it would be an easy A,” said Jacynda, 16, an outspoken Trump supporter. “It wasn’t.”

God’s Gift to Wellston?

Mr. Sutter, who grew up three hours north of Wellston in the largely Democratic city of Akron, applied for the job at Wellston High straight from a program to recruit science professionals into teaching, a kind of science-focused Teach for America.

He already had a graduate-level certificate in environmental science from the University of Akron and a private sector job assessing environmental risk for corporations. But a series of personal crises that included his sister’s suicide, he said, had compelled him to look for a way to channel his knowledge to more meaningful use.

The fellowship gave him a degree in science education in exchange for a three-year commitment to teach in a high-needs Ohio school district. Megan Sowers, the principal, had been looking for someone qualified to teach an Advanced Placement course, which could help improve her financially challenged school’s poor performance ranking. She hired him on the spot.

Mr. Sutter walking with his students on a nature trail near the high school, where he pointed out evidence of climate change. Credit: Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

But at a school where most teachers were raised in the same southeastern corner of Appalachian Ohio as their students, Mr. Sutter’s credentials themselves could raise hackles.

“He says, ‘I left a higher-paying job to come teach in an area like this,’” Jacynda recalled. “We’re like, ‘What is that supposed to mean?”’

“He acts,” Gwen said with her patented eye roll, “like he’s God’s gift to Wellston.”

In truth, he was largely winging it.

Some 20 states, including a handful of red ones, have recently begun requiring students to learn that human activity is a major cause of climate change, but few, if any, have provided a road map for how to teach it, and most science teachers, according to one recent survey, spend at most two hours on the subject.

Chagrined to learn that none of his students could recall a school visit by a scientist, Mr. Sutter hosted several graduate students from nearby Ohio University.

On a field trip to a biology laboratory there, many of his students took their first ride on an escalator. To illustrate why some scientists in the 1970s believed the world was cooling rather than warming (“So why should we believe them now?” students sometimes asked), he brought in a 1968 push-button phone and a 1980s Nintendo game cartridge.

“Our data and our ability to process it is just so much better now,” he said.

In the A.P. class, Mr. Sutter took an informal poll midway through: In all, 14 of 17 students said their parents thought he was, at best, wasting their time. “My stepdad says they’re brainwashing me,” one said.

Jacynda’s father, for one, did not raise an eyebrow when his daughter stopped attending Mr. Sutter’s class for a period in the early winter. A former coal miner who had endured two years of unemployment before taking a construction job, he declined a request to talk about it.

“I think it’s that it’s taken a lot from him,” Jacynda said. “He sees it as the environmental people have taken his job.”

And having listened to Mr. Sutter reiterate the overwhelming agreement among scientists regarding humanity’s role in global warming in answer to another classmate’s questions — “What if we’re not the cause of it? What if this is something that’s natural?” — Jacynda texted the classmate one night using an expletive to refer to Mr. Sutter’s teaching approach.

But even the staunchest climate-change skeptics could not ignore the dearth of snow days last winter, the cap to a year that turned out to be the warmest Earth has experienced since 1880, according to NASA. The high mark eclipsed the record set just the year before, which had eclipsed the year before that.

In woods behind the school, where Mr. Sutter had his students scout out a nature trail, he showed them the preponderance of emerald ash borers, an invasive insect that, because of the warm weather, had not experienced the usual die-off that winter. There was flooding, too: Once, more than 5.5 inches of rain fell in 48 hours.

The field trip to a local stream where the water runs neon orange also made an impression. Mr. Sutter had the class collect water samples: The pH levels were as acidic as “the white vinegar you buy at a grocery store,” he told them. And the drainage, they could see, was from the mine.

It was the realization that she had failed to grasp the damage done to her immediate environment, Jacynda said, that made her begin to pay more attention. She did some reading. She also began thinking that she might enjoy a job working for the Environmental Protection Agency — until she learned that, under Mr. Trump, the agency would undergo huge layoffs.

“O.K., I’m not going to lie. I did a 180,” she said that afternoon in the library with Gwen, casting a guilty look at her friend. “This is happening, and we have to fix it.”

After fleeing Mr. Sutter’s classroom that day, Gwen never returned, a pragmatic decision about which he has regrets. “That’s one student I feel I failed a little bit,” he said.

As an alternative, Gwen took an online class for environmental science credit, which she does not recall ever mentioning climate change. She and Jacynda had other things to talk about, like planning a bonfire after prom.

As they tried on dresses last month, Jacynda mentioned that others in their circle, including the boys they had invited to prom, believed the world was dangerously warming, and that humans were to blame. By the last days of school, most of Mr. Sutter’s doubters, in fact, had come to that conclusion.

“I know,” Gwen said, pausing for a moment. “Now help me zip this up.”

Researchers say they’ve figured out what makes people reject science, and it’s not ignorance (Science Alert)

24/01/2017Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, Educação, EUA, Negacionismo, Pós-verdaderenzotaddei

Why some people believe Earth is flat.

FIONA MACDONALD

23 JAN 2017

A lot happened in 2016, but one of the biggest cultural shifts was the rise of fake news – where claims with no evidence behind them (e.g. the world is flat) get shared as fact alongside evidence-based, peer-reviewed findings (e.g. climate change is happening).

Researchers have coined this trend the ‘anti-enlightenment movement‘, and there’s been a lot of frustration and finger-pointing over who or what’s to blame. But a team of psychologists has identified some of the key factors that can cause people to reject science – and it has nothing to do with how educated or intelligent they are.

In fact, the researchers found that people who reject scientific consensus on topics such as climate change, vaccine safety, and evolution are generally just as interested in science and as well-educated as the rest of us.

The issue is that when it comes to facts, people think more like lawyers than scientists, which means they ‘cherry pick’ the facts and studies that back up what they already believe to be true.

So if someone doesn’t think humans are causing climate change, they will ignore the hundreds of studies that support that conclusion, but latch onto the one study they can find that casts doubt on this view. This is also known as cognitive bias.

“We find that people will take a flight from facts to protect all kinds of belief including their religious belief, their political beliefs, and even simple personal beliefs such as whether they are good at choosing a web browser,” said one of the researchers, Troy Campbell from the University of Oregon.

“People treat facts as relevant more when the facts tend to support their opinions. When the facts are against their opinions, they don’t necessarily deny the facts, but they say the facts are less relevant.”

This conclusion was based on a series of new interviews, as well as a meta-analysis of the research that’s been published on the topic, and was presented in a symposium called over the weekend as part of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual convention in San Antonio.

The goal was to figure out what’s going wrong with science communication in 2017, and what we can do to fix it.

The research has yet to be published, so isn’t conclusive, but the results suggest that simply focussing on the evidence and data isn’t enough to change someone’s mind about a particular topic, seeing as they’ll most likely have their own ‘facts’ to fire back at you.

“Where there is conflict over societal risks – from climate change to nuclear-power safety to impacts of gun control laws, both sides invoke the mantel of science,” said one of the team, Dan Kahan from Yale University.

Instead, the researchers recommend looking into the ‘roots’ of people’s unwillingness to accept scientific consensus, and try to find common ground to introduce new ideas.

So where is this denial of science coming from? A big part of the problem, the researchers found, is that people associate scientific conclusions with political or social affiliations.

New research conducted by Kahan showed that people have actually always cherry picked facts when it comes to science – that’s nothing new. But it hasn’t been such a big problem in the past, because scientific conclusions were usually agreed on by political and cultural leaders, and promoted as being in the public’s best interests.

Now, scientific facts are being wielded like weapons in a struggle for cultural supremacy, Kahan told Melissa Healy over at the LA Times, and the result is a “polluted science communication environment”.

So how can we do better?

“Rather than taking on people’s surface attitudes directly, tailor the message so that it aligns with their motivation,” said Hornsey. “So with climate skeptics, for example, you find out what they can agree on and then frame climate messages to align with these.”

The researchers are still gathering data for a peer-reviewed publication on their findings, but they presented their work to the scientific community for further dissemination and discussion in the meantime.

Hornsey told the LA Times that the stakes are too high to continue to ignore the ‘anti-enlightenment movement’.

“Anti-vaccination movements cost lives,” said Hornsey. “Climate change skepticism slows the global response to the greatest social, economic and ecological threat of our time.”

“We grew up in an era when it was just presumed that reason and evidence were the ways to understand important issues; not fear, vested interests, tradition or faith,” he added.

“But the rise of climate skepticism and the anti-vaccination movement made us realise that these enlightenment values are under attack.”

The Violence of Forgetting (New York Times)

21/06/2016UncategorizedEducação, Estados Unidos, Giroux, Pedagogia crítica, Violênciarenzotaddei

Brad Evans and Henry A. Giroux

THE STONE

JUNE 20, 2016

Adrian Genie, Burning Books 2014. Credit: Private Collection, Switzerland, via Galerie Judin, Berlin

This is the fifth in a series of dialogues with philosophers and critical theorists on violence. This conversation is with Henry A. Giroux, a professor in the department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. His latest book is “America at War With Itself” (City Lights).

Brad Evans: Throughout your work you have dealt with the dangers of ignorance and what you have called the violence of “organized forgetting.” Can you explain what you mean by this and why we need to be attentive to intellectual forms of violence?

Henry Giroux: Unfortunately, we live at a moment in which ignorance appears to be one of the defining features of American political and cultural life. Ignorance has become a form of weaponized refusal to acknowledge the violence of the past, and revels in a culture of media spectacles in which public concerns are translated into private obsessions, consumerism and fatuous entertainment. As James Baldwin rightly warned, “Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

The warning signs from history are all too clear. Failure to learn from the past has disastrous political consequences. Such ignorance is not simply about the absence of information. It has its own political and pedagogical categories whose formative cultures threaten both critical agency and democracy itself.

What I have called the violence of organized forgetting signals how contemporary politics are those in which emotion triumphs over reason, and spectacle over truth, thereby erasing history by producing an endless flow of fragmented and disingenuous knowledge. At a time in which figures like Donald Trump are able to gain a platform by promoting values of “greatness” that serve to cleanse the memory of social and political progress achieved in the name of equality and basic human decency, history and thought itself are under attack.

Once ignorance is weaponized, violence seems to be a tragic inevitability. The mass shooting in Orlando is yet another example of an emerging global political and cultural climate of violence fed by hate and mass hysteria. Such violence legitimates not only a kind of inflammatory rhetoric and ideological fundamentalism that views violence as the only solution to addressing social issues, it also provokes further irrational acts of violence against others. Spurrned on by a complete disrespect for those who affirm different ways of living, this massacre points to a growing climate of hate and bigotry that is unapologetic in its political nihilism.

It would be easy to dismiss such an act as another senseless example of radical Islamic terrorism. That is too easy. Another set of questions needs to be asked. What are the deeper political, educational, and social conditions that allow a climate of hate, racism, and bigotry to become the dominant discourse of a society or worldview? What role do politicians with their racist and aggressive discourses play in the emerging landscapes violence? How can we use education, among other resources, to prevent politics from being transformed into a pathology? And how might we counter these tragic and terrifying conditions without retreating into security or military mindsets?

Violence maims not only the body, but also the mind and the spirit.

B.E.: You insist that education is crucial to any viable critique of oppression and violence. Why?

H.G.: I begin with the assumption that education is fundamental to democracy. No democratic society can survive without a formative culture, which includes but is not limited to schools capable of producing citizens who are critical, self-reflective, knowledgeable and willing to make moral judgments and act in a socially inclusive and responsible way. This is contrary to forms of education that reduce learning to an instrumental logic that too often and too easily can be perverted to violent ends.

So we need to remember that education can be both a basis for critical thought and a site for repression, which destroys thinking and leads to violence. Michel Foucault wrote that knowledge and truth not only “belong to the register of order and peace,” but can also be found on the “side of violence, disorder, and war.” What matters is the type of education a person is encouraged to pursue.

It’s not just schools that are a site of this struggle. “Education” in this regard not only includes public and higher education, but also a range of cultural apparatuses and media that produce, distribute and legitimate specific forms of knowledge, ideas, values and social relations. Just think of the ways in which politics and violence now inform each other and dominate media culture. First-person shooter video games top the video-game market while Hollywood films ratchet up representations of extreme violence and reinforce a culture of fear, aggression and militarization. Similar spectacles now drive powerful media conglomerates like 21st Century Fox, which includes both news and entertainment subsidiaries.

As public values wither along with the public spheres that produce them, repressive modes of education gain popularity and it becomes easier to incarcerate people than to educate them, to model schools after prisons, to reduce the obligations of citizenship to mere consumption and to remove any notion of social responsibility from society’s moral registers and ethical commitments.

B.E.: Considering Hannah Arendt’s warning that the forces of domination and exploitation require “thoughtlessness” on behalf of the oppressors, how is the capacity to think freely and in an informed way key to providing a counter to violent practices?

H.G.: Young people can learn to challenge violence, like those in the antiwar movement of the early ’70s or today in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Education does more than create critically minded, socially responsible citizens. It enables young people and others to challenge authority by connecting individual troubles to wider systemic concerns. This notion of education is especially important given that racialized violence, violence against women and the ongoing assaults on public goods cannot be solved on an individual basis.

Violence maims not only the body but also the mind and spirit. As Pierre Bourdieu has argued, it lies “on the side of belief and persuasion.” If we are to counter violence by offering young people ways to think differently about their world and the choices before them, they must be empowered to recognize themselves in any analysis of violence, and in doing so to acknowledge that it speaks to their lives meaningfully.

There is no genuine democracy without an informed public. While there are no guarantees that a critical education will prompt individuals to contest various forms of oppression and violence, it is clear that in the absence of a formative democratic culture, critical thinking will increasingly be trumped by anti-intellectualism, and walls and war will become the only means to resolve global challenges.

Creating such a culture of education, however, will not be easy in a society that links the purpose of education with being competitive in a global economy.

B.E.: Mindful of this, there is now a common policy in place throughout the education system to create “safe spaces” so students feel comfortable in their environments. This is often done in the name of protecting those who may have their voices denied. But given your claim about the need to confront injustice, does this represent an ethically responsible approach to difficult subject matters?

Critical education should be viewed as the art of the possible rather than a space organized around timidity, caution and fear.

H.G.: There is a growing culture of conformity and quietism on university campuses, made evident in the current call for safe spaces and trigger warnings. This is not just conservative reactionism, but is often carried out by liberals who believe they are acting with the best intentions. Violence comes in many forms and can be particularly disturbing when confronted in an educational setting if handled dismissively or in ways that blame victims.

Yet troubling knowledge cannot be condemned on the basis of making students uncomfortable, especially if the desire for safety serves merely to limit access to difficult knowledge and the resources needed to analyze it. Critical education should be viewed as the art of the possible rather than a space organized around timidity, caution and fear.

Creating safe spaces runs counter to the notion that learning should be unsettling, that students should challenge common sense assumptions and be willing to confront disturbing realities despite discomfort. The political scientist Wendy Brown rightly argues that the “domain of free public speech is not one of emotional safety or reassurance,” and is “ not what the public sphere and political speech promise.” A university education should, Brown writes, “ call you to think, question, doubt” and “ incite you to question everything you assume, think you know or care about.”

This is particularly acute when dealing with pedagogies of violence and oppression. While there is a need to be ethically sensitive to the subject matter, our civic responsibility requires, at times, confronting truly intolerable conditions. The desire for emotionally safe spaces can be invoked to protect one’s sense of privilege — especially in the privileged sites of university education. This is further compounded by the frequent attempts by students to deny some speakers a platform because their views are controversial. While the intentions may be understandable, this is a dangerous road to go down.

Confronting the intolerable should be challenging and upsetting. Who could read the testimonies of Primo Levi and not feel intellectually and emotionally exhausted? Or Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, not to mention those of Malcolm X? It is the conditions that produce violence that should upset us ethically and prompt us to act responsibly, rather than to capitulate to a privatized emotional response that substitutes a therapeutic language for a political and worldly one.

There is more at work here than the infantilizing notion that students should be protected rather than challenged in the classroom; there is also the danger of creating a chilling effect on the part of faculty who want to address controversial topics such as war, poverty, spectacles of violence, racism, sexism and inequality. If American society wants to invest in its young people, it has an obligation to provide them with an education in which they are challenged, can learn to take risks, think outside the boundaries of established ideologies, and expand the far reaches of their creativity and critical judgment. This demands a pedagogy that is complicated, taxing and disruptive.

B.E.: You place the university at the center of a democratic and civil society. But considering that the university is not a politically neutral setting separate from power relations, you are concerned with what you term “gated intellectuals” who become seduced by the pursuit of power. Please explain this concept.

H.G.: Public universities across the globe are under attack not because they are failing, but because they are they are considered discretionary — unlike K-12 education for which funding is largely compulsory. The withdrawal of financial support has initiated a number of unsavory responses: Universities have felt compelled to turn towards corporate management models. They have effectively hobbled academic freedom by employing more precarious part-time instead of full-time faculty, and they increasingly treat students as consumers to be seduced by various campus gimmicks while burying the majority in debt.

My critique of what I have called “gated intellectuals” responds to these troubling trends by pointing to an increasingly isolated and privileged full-time faculty who believe that higher education still occupies the rarefied, otherworldly space of disinterested intellectualism of Cardinal Newman’s 19th century, and who defend their own indifference to social issues through appeals to professionalism or by condemning as politicized those academics who grapple with larger social issues. Some academics have gone so far as to suggest that criticizing the university is tantamount to destroying it. There is a type of intellectual violence at work here that ignores and often disparages the civic function of education while forgetting Hannah Arendt’s incisive admonition that “education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it.”

Supported by powerful conservative foundations and awash in grants from the defense and intelligence agencies, such gated intellectuals appear to have forgotten that in a democracy it is crucial to defend the university as a crucial democratic public sphere. This is not to suggest that they are silent. On the contrary, they provide the intellectual armory for war, the analytical supports for gun ownership, and lend legitimacy to a host of other policies that lead to everyday forms of structural violence and poverty. Not only have they succumbed to official power, they collude with it.

B.E.: I feel your recent work provides a somber updating of Arendt’s notion of “dark times,” hallmarked by political and intellectual catastrophe. How might we harness the power of education to reimagine the future in more inclusive and less violent terms?

H.G.: The current siege on higher education, whether through defunding education, eliminating tenure, tying research to military needs, or imposing business models of efficiency and accountability, poses a dire threat not only to faculty and students who carry the mantle of university self-governance, but also to democracy itself.

The solutions are complex and cannot be addressed in isolation from a range of other issues in the larger society such as the defunding of public goods, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, poverty and the reach of the prison-industrial complex into the lives of those marginalized by class and race.

We have to fight back against a campaign, as Gene R. Nichol puts it, “to end higher education’s democratizing influence on the nation.” To fight this, faculty, young people and others outside of higher education must collectively engage with larger social movements for the defense of public goods. We must address that as the welfare state is defunded and dismantled, the state turns away from enacting social provisions and becomes more concerned about security than social responsibility. Fear replaces compassion, and a survival-of-the-fittest ethic replaces any sense of shared concern for others.

Lost in the discourse of individual responsibility and self-help are issues like power, class and racism. Intellectuals need to create the public spaces in which identities, desires and values can be encouraged to act in ways conducive to the formation of citizens willing to fight for individual and social rights, along with those ideals that give genuine meaning to a representative democracy.

Any discussion of the fate of higher education must address how it is shaped by the current state of inequality in American society, and how it perpetuates it. Not only is such inequality evident in soaring tuition costs, inevitably resulting in the growing exclusion of working- and middle-class students from higher education, but also in the transformation of over two-thirds of faculty positions into a labor force of overworked and powerless adjunct faculty members. Faculty need to take back the university and reclaim modes of governance in which they have the power to teach and act with dignity, while denouncing and dismantling the increasing corporatization of the university and the seizing of power by administrators and their staff, who now outnumber faculty on most campuses.

In return, academics need to fight for the right of students to be given an education not dominated by corporate values. Higher education is a right, and not an entitlement. It should be free, as it is in many other countries, and as Robin Kelley points out, this should be true particularly for minority students. This is all the more crucial as young people have been left out of the discourse of democracy. Rather than invest in prisons and weapons of death, Americans need a society that invests in public and higher education.

There is more at stake here than making visible the vast inequities in educational and economic opportunities. Seeing education as a political form of intervention, offering a path toward racial and economic justice, is crucial in reimagining a new politics of hope. Universities should be subversive in a healthy society. They should push against the grain, and give voice to the voiceless the powerless and the whispers of truth that haunt the apostles of unchecked power and wealth. Pedagogy should be disruptive and unsettling, while pushing hard against established orthodoxies. Such demands are far from radical, and leave more to be done, but they point to a new beginning in the struggle over the role of higher education in the United States.

Antigas listas de compras viram evidência sobre quando a Bíblia foi escrita (UOL/NYT)

13/04/2016UncategorizedAlfabetização, Arqueologia, Bíblia, Educação, Judaísmo, Religiãorenzotaddei

Isabel Kershner
Em Tel Aviv (Israel)

13/04/201606h00

Anotações feitas em tinta em cerâmica

Anotações feitas em tinta em cerâmica. Michael Cordonsky/Israel Antiquities Authority via The New York Times

Eliashib, o intendente da remota fortaleza no deserto, recebia suas instruções por escrito, anotações feitas em tinta em cerâmica pedindo que provisões fossem enviadas para as forças no antigo reino de Judá.

Os pedidos por vinho, farinha e óleo parecem listas de compras mundanas, apesar de antigas. Mas uma nova análise da caligrafia sugere que a capacidade de ler e escrever era bem mais disseminada do que antes se sabia na Terra Santa por volta de 600 a.C., perto do final do período do Primeiro Templo. As conclusões, segundo pesquisadores da Universidade de Tel Aviv, pode ter alguma relevância para o debate de um século sobre quando o corpo principal dos textos bíblicos foi composto.

“Para Eliashib: agora, dê a Kittiyim 3 batos de vinho, e escreva o nome do dia”, diz um dos textos, compostos em hebraico antigo usando o alfabeto aramaico, e aparentemente referindo-se a uma unidade mercenária grega na área.

Outra dizia: “E um coro pleno de vinho, traga amanhã. Não atrase. E se tiver vinagre, dê a eles”.

O novo estudo, publicado na “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, combinou arqueologia, história judaica e matemática aplicada, assim como envolveu processamento de imagens por computador e o desenvolvimento de um algoritmo para distinguir entre os vários autores emitindo as ordens.

Com base na análise estatística dos resultados, e levando em consideração o conteúdo dos textos escolhidos como amostra, os pesquisadores concluíram que pelo menos seis mãos escreveram as 18 mensagens mais ou menos na mesma época. Até mesmo soldados das fileiras mais baixas do exército de Judá, ao que parece, sabiam ler e escrever.

“Há algo psicológico além das estatísticas”, disse o professor Israel Finkelstein, do Departamento de Arqueologia e Civilizações Antigas do Oriente Próximo da Universidade de Tel Aviv, um dos líderes do projeto. “Há um entendimento do poder da alfabetização. E eles escreviam bem, praticamente sem erros.”

O estudo se baseou em um conjunto de cerca de 100 cartas escritas com tinta em pedaços de cerâmica, conhecidos como óstracos, que foram descobertos perto do Mar Morto em escavações do forte Arad, décadas atrás, e datados de cerca de 600 a.C. Isso foi pouco antes da destruição de Jerusalém e do reino de Judá por Nabucodonosor, e o exílio de sua elite para a Babilônia, e antes de quando muitos acadêmicos acreditam que grande parte dos textos bíblicos, incluindo os cinco livros de Moisés também conhecidos como Pentateuco, foram escritos de forma coesa.

A cidadela de Arad era uma frente pequena, distante e ativa, próxima da fronteira com o reino rival de Edom. O forte em si tinha apenas cerca de 2.000 metros quadrados e provavelmente só acomodava cerca de 30 soldados. A riqueza dos textos encontrados ali, registrando movimentos de tropas, provisões e outras atividades diárias, foi criada em um período curto, o que os torna uma amostra valiosa para estudo de quantas mãos diferentes os escreveram.

“Para Eliashib: agora, forneça 3 batos de vinho”, ordenava outro óstraco, adicionando: “E Hananyahu ordena que envie a Beersheba 2 mulas carregadas e envie a massa de pão com elas”.

Um dos argumentos mais antigos para o corpo principal da literatura bíblica não ter sido escrito em nada parecido com sua presente forma até depois da destruição e exílio, em 586 a.C., é que antes não havia alfabetização suficiente e nem escribas suficientes para a realização de uma empreitada tão grande.

Mas se a taxa de alfabetização no forte Arad se repetir por todo o reino de Judá, que contava com cerca de 100 mil habitantes, haveria centenas de pessoas alfabetizadas, sugere a equipe de pesquisa de Tel Aviv.

Isso forneceria a infraestrutura para a composição das obras bíblicas que constituem a base da história e teologia de Judá, incluindo as primeiras versões dos livros do Deuteronômio ao Segundo Livro de Reis, segundo os pesquisadores.

Desde o século 19, os acadêmicos debatem “quando foi escrito?”, disse Finkelstein. “Na própria época ou depois”, ele acrescentou, referindo-se à destruição e exílio.

Nos séculos após a destruição e exílio, até 200 a.C., disse Finkelstein, praticamente não há evidência arqueológica de inscrições em hebraico. Ele disse que esperava que escavações revelassem selos gravados e escritos cotidianos em cerâmica, mesmo que textos mais importantes, como os bíblicos, fossem feitos em materiais perecíveis, como pergaminho e papiro.

Os textos bíblicos escritos nos séculos após 586 a.C., ele sugeriu, provavelmente foram compostos na Babilônia.

Outros acadêmicos alertaram contra extrair conclusões demais a respeito de quando a primeira grande parte da Bíblia foi escrita, com base em extrapolações a partir das taxas de alfabetização antigas.

“Não há um consenso atualmente nos estudos bíblicos”, disse o professor Edward Greenstein, da Universidade Bar-Ilan, perto de Tel Aviv. “O processo de transmissão era muito mais complicado do que os acadêmicos costumam pensar.”

O processo de composição da Torá, segundo Greenstein, parece ter envolvido camadas de reescrições, suplementos e revisões. Apontando para o saber recente da literatura bíblica, ele disse que os escribas podiam registrar os textos principalmente como auxílio à memória, em um mundo onde ainda eram transmitidos oralmente.

“Os textos bíblicos não precisavam ser escritos por muitas pessoas, ou lidos por muitas pessoas, para serem redigidos”, ele disse, acrescentando que os textos não circulavam amplamente.

Para deduzir as taxas de alfabetização, a equipe de pesquisa usou um método que Barak Sober, do Departamento de Matemática Aplicada da Universidade de Tel Aviv, comparou à análise forense de caligrafia adaptada aos tempos antigos.

Os matemáticos pegaram 16 cacos de cerâmica de Arad que eram mais ricos em conteúdo (dois apresentavam inscrições em ambos os lados). Dois dos textos lembravam uma chamada, apenas listando as pessoas presentes, e foram claramente escritos no posto avançado no deserto; outros foram compostos em outro lugar.

Muitas das cartas em aramaico não eram claras, de modo que não era possível dar simplesmente entrada dos dados em um computador. Em vez disso, os pesquisadores conceberam uma forma de reconstruí-las. Então as letras de pares de textos foram misturadas e o algoritmo as separou com base na caligrafia.

Se o algoritmo dividisse as letras em dois grupos claros, os textos eram contados como tendo sido escritos por dois autores. Quando o algoritmo não distinguia entre as letras e as deixava juntas em um grupo, nenhuma posição era tomada; elas podiam ter sido escritas pela mesma mão ou, possivelmente, por duas pessoas com estilo semelhante.

Um cálculo conservador revelou pelo menos quatro autores, e seis quando o conteúdo foi levado em consideração, como quem estava escrevendo para quem.

Outro óstraco foi endereçado a um homem chamado Nahum. Ele foi instruído a ir “até a casa de Eliashib, filho de Eshiyahu” para pegar um jarro de óleo, para enviá-lo a Ziph “rapidamente, o lacrando com seu selo”.

Tradutor: George El Khouri Andolfato

Humanities research is groundbreaking, life-changing… and ignored (The Guardian)

21/10/2015Uncategorizedciência, Ciências sociais, Educação, Humanidadesrenzotaddei

Humanities scholars are making strides in sectors from sustainability to robotics – why are so few people aware of their work?

Philosopher Don Howard worked with computer scientists on the ethics of ‘human-robot interaction’. Photograph: Alamy

Gretchen Busl, Assistant professor of English at Texas Woman’s University

Monday 19 October 2015 07.00 BSTLast modified on Monday 19 October 2015 21.23 BST

Deep in the corridors of Stanford University’s English department, graduate student Jodie Archer developed a computer model that can predict New York Times bestsellers. Her soon-to-be published research landed her a top job with Apple iBooks and may revolutionise the publishing industry. At the University of Notre Dame, philosopher Don Howard worked with a computer scientist to develop a code of ethics for “human-robot interaction” that could change the way Silicon Valley designs robots.

Both scholars share an academic background in humanities. And they join countless others working in fields such as technology, environmental sustainability and even infectious disease control.

But humanities is experiencing a crisis. Public support has dwindled. Enrolment in humanities majors is down and courses are disappearing from university curricula. A tightening job market means more humanities PhDs than ever are looking for – and not finding – jobs outside of academia.

In theory, our society cherishes the humanities – the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is even being celebrated with a ceremony at the White House. In its years, the NEH has awarded more than $5bn (£3.2m) in grants to promote innovative research and cultural projects, such as the development of a database to track the transatlantic slave trade and the preservation and publication of the Dead Sea scrolls.

Even so, congressional support for the humanities has plummeted along with federal, state and private funding. Adjusted for inflation, the current $146m budget for the NEH represents just half of its expenditure in 1980.

Part of the issue is an image problem around the impact of humanities research on the wider world. The public should know about Priscilla Wald, an English professor at Duke University, whose explanation of the “outbreak narrative” of contagion is changing the way scientists think about the spread of infectious diseases. They should know about environmental humanities professor Joni Adamson, who is applying the study of indigenous cultures to make desert cities into more sustainable ecosystems.

Most arguments for “saving” the humanities focus on the fact that employers prize the critical thinking and communication skills that undergraduate students develop. Although that may be true, such arguments highlight the value of classroom study, not the value of research.

But humanities research teaches us about the world beyond the classroom, and beyond a job. Humanities scholars explore ethical issues, and discover how the past informs the present and the future. Researchers delve into the discourses that construct gender, race, and class. We learn to decode the images that surround us; to understand and use the language necessary to navigate a complex and rapidly shifting world.

The academy itself is partly to blame for this image problem. The inward-focused nature of scholarship has left the public with no choice but to respond to our work with indifference and even disdain, because we have made little effort to demonstrate what purpose our work may have beyond the lecture hall or academic journal.

The traditional academic model does not reward public humanities scholarship. Rather, humanities scholars are saddled with the expectation of producing peer-reviewed articles and monographs published by university presses for tenure and promotion. This antiquated system encourages scholars to write and speak only for an audience of peers, keeping graduate students from branching away from the proto-book dissertation model and faculty from exploring popular venues for their work.

The potential applications of this type of research are endless – the examples above are the just the tip of the iceberg. And more employers need to see that such research has wide application outside of the academy. The American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellows programme is helping to facilitate this process by placing humanities PhDs in high-profile positions in government and non-profit organisations such as the US department of state, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Campaign.

Humanities scholars need to take what feels – right now – like a risk, and engage in more public scholarship. After all, we are the best qualified to talk about our own work. And we need our chairs, our deans and our provosts to afford us the support and incentives to do so.

The payoff will not only be in increased visibility and perceived value for humanities research, but the opportunity to make an impact that is much greater than that offered by the solitary scholar model.

Hardly the soft sciences (The Hindu)

16/06/2015UncategorizedÍndia, Capitalismo, Ciências sociais, Educação, Mercado, Universidaderenzotaddei

ROHAN D’SOUZA

June 10, 2015

The social sciences and humanities will be critical in helping us understand what the sciences will become in the future

DISMANTLING THE OLD:“There is an urgent need to initiate a generational change in India’s university leadership.” Picture shows graduation day in the University of Hyderabad.— PHOTO: MOHAMMED YOUSUF

Common sense has defeated the social sciences and humanities in India. As the rush for college seats begin, parents worry if there are any viable options outside of medicine, engineering, management or studying abroad. What good would a B.A. in history or sociology do other than a roll-of-the-dice chance at the civil services? As a historian, I have often faced blunt questions: what can a job prospect possibly be if you spend three/four years learning the causes of Mughal decline or the Permanent Settlement of 1793? This ably describes why most people see the social sciences, with the exception of economics, as a losing proposition. But has the tide begun to turn?

One of the most significant bursts of funding in the social sciences and the humanities occurred during the Cold War years. The United States, keen as it was then to establish spheres of influence, invested heavily to learn about how societies understood themselves and which ideology appealed to what individual. The money ran into hundreds of millions of dollars with the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York pulling funds from deep pockets. The Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies were other key players who helped sponsor innumerable workshops, conferences and academic seminars. These efforts resulted not only in a vast number of publications, but helped develop many enduring concepts which arguably continue to explain the world we live in. Scores of scholars, research communities and university departments, in being caught up in strategic concerns, ended up harnessing the social sciences and humanities to understand how nations and societies dealt with authority, ideologies, politics and power. Hardly the ‘soft sciences’!

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, funding for the Area Studies expectedly dried up. On the other hand, academic explorations under the rubrics of nation-making, democracy, globalisation and multiculturalism could hardly wield the previous heft.

In a study published in Research Trends (2013), Gali Halevi and Judit Bar-Ilanit point out that globally the financing for humanities sharply fell between 2009 and 2012. In part, while the 2008 financial crisis could be blamed for the sudden yanking of the proverbial rug, the loss in the lustre of the social sciences had already begun by the mid-1990s following the steady commercialisation of education. Unsurprisingly, student debt and education loans fell harder on those in the social sciences, arts and humanities than they did on those pursuing vocational skills such as engineering. At heart, however, this big turn against the ‘soft sciences’ was what Bill Reading described, in his classic The University in Ruins (1996), as the sustained attempt to transform the university from previously serving as an “ideological arm of the nation-state” to instead now being redesigned as a “consumer oriented corporation”. By morphing the citizen-student into a consumer-student (weighed in by debt), the actual rout of the social sciences was announced.

Reduced funding

It is amidst the aftershocks of this change in the meaning of education that we should make sense of Ella Delany’s startling report in The New York Times (December, 2013) in which she catalogues a growing disquiet against the humanities and social sciences. In 2012, a task force convened by Governor Rick Scott of Florida recommended that students majoring in liberal arts and social science subjects be made to pay higher tuition fees as they were in “nonstrategic disciplines”. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2013 “reprioritised” 103 million Australian dollars from research in the humanities into medical research. In Britain, Robin Jackson, chief executive of the British Academy for the humanities and social sciences, in 2011 announced that direct government funding for humanities had been withdrawn and was to be replaced by tuition fees “backed up by government loans”.

Is this total defeat? Ironically, just as the social sciences and the humanities are being written off in many countries, there have emerged vigorous calls for resituating its importance. Notably, climate change research and global environmental change programmes the world over are stridently advocating for what they term as the urgent need for “integrated analyses”. It is imperative, they argue, that the natural sciences be drawn into productive dialogues with the social sciences in order to explore critical themes such as global sustainability and green development.

One of the most significant international science initiatives in recent times called the Future Earth has, in fact, in their ‘Strategic Research Agenda’ (2014) urged for initiating a new generation in interdisciplinary and integrated research which can grapple with the realities of a warming planet. The initiative, however, is not entirely novel. For decades now, interdisciplinary efforts such as science studies, environmental history and full-fledged post graduate programmes under the rubric of science-technology-environment-medicine (STEM) have successfully broken down the hard divides between the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. These interdisciplinary initiatives have also compellingly revealed that the natural sciences are ideologically driven and are often oriented by political practice. In effect, the social sciences and humanities will be critical to help us understand what the sciences will become in the future. Significantly, given that an entirely new script for economic behaviour is being drafted in the context of climate change, these conversations have acquired pressing strategic consequences for the developing world.

The Indian scenario

The university system in India is, unfortunately, ill-prepared to take up these challenges. In part, it has put all its research and teaching eggs on the vice-chancellor system for administering higher education. The vice-chancellorship, as an organisational logic, is an ailing legacy and remains a bad marriage between the Mughal Jagirdari system and the rigidity of the British colonial bureaucracy. The higher you go up the administrative ladder, there is less transparency, accountability and intellectual oxygen.

There is an urgent need to initiate a generational change in our university leadership, with fresh blood and new ideas brought in with rigorous metrics to judge the performance and contributions at the very top of the administrative chain. If the social sciences and the humanities in India are to be cutting edge by providing knowledge for the future, then the old has to be entirely dismantled.

(Rohan D’Souza is associate professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University.)

The natural sciences should be drawn into dialogues with the social sciences to explore critical themes such as global sustainability

Reunião Magna da ABC ressalta que o prazer de fazer ciência pela ciência está acima de qualquer premiação (Jornal da Ciência)

13/05/2015UncategorizedABC, ciência, Educação, Política científicarenzotaddei

terça-feira, 12 de maio de 2015

Evento atraiu parcela de leigos interessados em comprovar que o desenvolvimento científico pode ser uma solução para os problemas socioeconômicos do Brasil

Para participantes e organizadores da Reunião Magna 2015 da Academia Brasileira de Ciências, realizada de 4 a 6 de maio, no Rio de Janeiro, é, sem dúvida, difícil elencar os momentos que mais capturaram a atenção. A excelência dos temas escolhidos para as sessões, assim como o alto nível dos palestrantes, atraiu um público variado, que reuniu desde jovens talentos da Ciência no Brasil aos renomados integrantes da Academia e que há anos trabalham, dentro e fora de laboratórios, para que o Brasil ganhe destaque no cenário de produção científica internacional.

Sob o tema “O Valor da Ciência”, na acepção de Poincaré, matemático, físico e filósofo francês que conferiu uma nova abordagem à Ciência entre os séculos XIX e XX, a Reunião Magna 2015 estimulou a discussão em torno do valor intrínseco de atividade científica _ ciência pela ciência_, ressaltando a importância da Ciência para o desenvolvimento socioeconômico brasileiro. Entre as palestras, um denominador comum ficou claro, é preciso estimular a ousadia dos jovens cientistas para que as pesquisas se transformem em inovação. Outro ponto em comum das apresentações dos cientistas foi a importância do trabalho de equipe e valorização de cada colaborador em uma pesquisa.

Ganhadora do Prêmio Nobel de Química e primeira mulher israelense a obter a premiação, a cientista Ada Yonath mostrou que o bom humor é um traço dos pesquisadores, que têm o brilho no olhar ao comprovar o fundamento de suas pesquisas. Após sua palestra no último dia da Reunião Magna, Ada conheceu o Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas da UFRJ. Recebida pelo vice-diretor do Instituto, prof. José Garcia Abreu, e pela coordenadora do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Morfológicas da UFRJ, profa. Flávia Alcantara Gomes, Membro Afiliado da ABC, Ada afirmou, com relação às perguntas dos alunos de pós-graduação, sobre o que representou ganhar o prêmio Nobel, que “ganhar o prêmio foi bom…. mas entender a estrutura dos ribossomos foi o que me deu de fato a maior satisfação”. Ela deixou claro que o prazer da descoberta científica deve estar acima do prazer do reconhecimento.

O prazer de concluir uma pesquisa e ver o trabalho de anos refletindo em um bem maior para sociedade também foi a mensagem do biólogo francês Jules Hoffmann, vencedor do Prêmio Nobel de Fisiologia/ Medicina de 2011, por um trabalho feito com Bruce Beutler que descobriu a ativação da imunidade inata. Ele capturou atenção máxima de todo o público do segundo dia da Reunião Magna de 2015. Atualmente à frente da direção da área de pesquisa e membro do Conselho de Administração do Centro Nacional de Pesquisa Científica da França (CNRS), ele enalteceu a contribuição de todos os demais integrantes de sua equipe, que, segundo ele, foram fundamentais para o resultado.

Respostas às inquietudes

Ao final do evento, o coordenador da Reunião Magna 2015, professor Vivaldo Moura Neto, disse ao Jornal da Ciência que a escolha do tema teve a intenção de destacar o prazer humano de fazer ciência, de buscar respostas às inquietudes do homem diante da natureza. Segundo ele, é preciso valorizar a Ciência no que ela pode trazer como implicações no desenvolvimento tecnológico, inovador e assim certamente contribuir para o desenvolvimento do país.

“Nós, hoje como ontem e ainda amanhã, precisaremos estar atentos a isto. Será preciso que os governantes reconheçam a contribuição da Ciência brasileira ao desenvolvimento, uma ciência madura, produtiva, rica de possibilidades para atender ao desenvolvimento nacional. Repetimos isto durante os três dias, demonstramos esta verdade com projetos em curso e resultados testados”, disse. “Vejam exemplos do que se faz no CENPES, na COPPE, nos Institutos do Centro de Ciências da saúde da UFRJ, na USP, na Universidade de Campinas, na Bioquímica da UFRGS, no Instituto do Cérebro da PUC-do Rio Grande do Sul, ou o trabalho dos virologistas no Pará, além de tantos mais. De fato, o encontro permitiu mostrar o quanto estamos prontos para oferecer, a partir da ciência fundamental, os produtos que ela sabe gerar. Os engenheiros foram contundentes nos seus exemplos. É incrível a miopia de tantos que, lá do alto, não veem o que se passa aqui na terra brasilis”, completou o coordenador da Reunião Magna 2015.

Atrair os jovens

Nesta edição, a Reunião Magna atraiu, além de cientistas experientes e jovens talentos da produção científica, um grupo expressivo de “leigos”, segundo o professor Moura Neto. “Nos três dias da Reunião, houve relatos das experiências dos mais vividos, mas todos nós sabemos que não se faz um pesquisador, não se faz um cientista, de repente. É preciso atrair os jovens, entusiasmá-los, orientá-los. No entanto, não havia apenas jovens de centros universitários, ou os mais experientes da ciência, havia uma parcela de leigos, que certamente encontrou na Reunião Magna uma fonte de conhecimento, uma esperança de que se poderá melhorar o país. Seria interessante, naturalmente, que os governantes também vissem isto”, completou Moura Neto.

Sobre a participação dos convidados estrangeiros e da sua percepção sobre o desenvolvimento da produção científica no Brasil, o coordenador da Reunião Magna 2015 disse que eles já têm colaboração com equipes brasileiras. “Se eles mantêm estas colaborações, é porque sabem da qualidade excelente do que fazemos aqui. Eles mesmo disseram isto, como por exemplo o matemático francês Etiennen Ghys, que aliás fez parte de sua formação no Rio de Janeiro, no IMPA”, comentou.

Segundo Moura Neto, o prêmio Nobel Jules Hoffmann enalteceu, nas suas conversas de corredor na ABC, durante o evento, a satisfação de suas colaborações com esquipes paulistas. O coordenador da Reunião Magna também comentou que a cientista Ada Yonath, que, segundo ele, encantou a todos com uma conferência espetacular, manifestou possibilidades de colaborar com grupos brasileiros. “Se eles querem estas colaborações é porque nos reconhecem ombro a ombro”, finalizou.

Suzana Liskauskas/ Jornal da Ciência

A Brief History of the “Testocracy,” Standardized Testing and Test-Defying (Truthout)

26/03/2015UncategorizedBurocracia, Classes sociais, Discriminação, Educação, Meritocracia, Poderrenzotaddei

Wednesday, 25 March 2015 00:00

By Jesse Hagopian, Haymarket Books | Book Excerpt

CHICAGO- 24 April, 2013: Demonstrator holds sign at a rally against school closings and over testing. (Photo: Sarah Jane Rhee)

Demonstrators rally against school closings and testing in Chicago, April 24, 2013. (Photo: Sarah Jane Rhee)

“We are experiencing the largest ongoing revolt against high-stakes standardized testing in US history,” according to Jesse Hagopian, high school history teacher, education writer and editor of More Than a Score. This remarkable book introduces the educators, students, parents and others who make up the resistance movement pushing back against the corporate “testocracy.” Click here to order More Than a Score today by making a donation to Truthout!

In this excerpt from More Than a Score, Jesse Hagopian explains who the “testocracy” are, what they want – for everybody else’s children and for their own – and why more people than ever before are resisting tests and working collectively to reclaim public education.

Who are these testocrats who would replace teaching with testing? The testocracy, in my view, does not only refer to the testing conglomerates—most notably the multibillion-dollar Pearson testing and textbook corporation—that directly profit from the sale of standardized exams. The testocracy is also the elite stratum of society that finances and promotes competition and privatization in public education rather than collaboration, critical thinking, and the public good. Not dissimilar to a theocracy, under our current testocracy, a deity—in this case the exalted norm-referenced bubble exam—is officially recognized as the civil ruler of education whose policy is governed by officials that regard test results as divine. The testocratic elite are committed to reducing the intellectual and emotional process of teaching and learning to a single number—a score they subsequently use to sacrifice education on the altar devoted to high-stakes testing by denying students promotion or graduation, firing teachers, converting schools into privatized charters, or closing schools altogether. You’ve heard of this program; the testocracy refers to it as “education reform.”

Among the most prominent members of the testocracy are some of the wealthiest people the world has ever known.

Among the most prominent members of the testocracy are some of the wealthiest people the world has ever known. Its tsars include billionaires Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and members of the Walton family (the owners of Walmart), who have used their wealth to circumvent democratic processes and impose test-and-punish policies in public education. They fund a myriad of organizations—such as Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, Teach for America, and Stand for Children—that serve as shock troops to enforce the implantation of high-stakes testing and corporate education reform in states and cities across the nation. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan serves to help coordinate and funnel government money to the various initiatives of the testocracy. The plan to profit from public schools was expressed by billionaire media executive Rupert Murdoch, when he said in a November 2010 press release: “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”

Testing companies got the memo and are working diligently to define great teaching as preparing students for norm-referenced exams—available to districts across the country if the price is right. The textbook and testing industry generates between $20 billion and $30 billion dollars per year. Pearson, a multi-national corporation based in Britain, brings in more than $9 billion annually, and is the world’s largest education company and book publisher. But it’s not the only big testing company poised to profit from the testocracy. Former president George W. Bush’s brother Neil and his parents founded a company called Ignite! Learning to sell test products after the passage of No Child Left Behind.

“An Invalid Measure”: The Fundamental Flaws of Standardized Testing

The swelling number of test-defiers is rooted in the increase of profoundly flawed standardized exams. Often, these tests don’t reflect the concepts emphasized in the students’ classes and, just as often, the results are not available until after the student has already left the teacher’s classroom, rendering the test score useless as a tool for informing instruction. Yet the problem of standardized bubble tests’ usefulness for educators extends well beyond the lag time (which can be addressed by computerized tests that immediately calculate results). A standardized bubble test does not help teachers understand how a student arrived at answer choice “C.” The student may have selected the right answer but not known why it was right, or conversely, may have chosen the wrong answer but had sophisticated reasoning that shows a deeper understanding of the concept than someone else who randomly guessed correctly. Beyond the lack of utility of standardized testing in facilitating learning there is a more fundamental flaw. A norm-referenced, standardized test compares each individual student to everyone else taking the test, and the score is then usually reported as a percentile. Alfie Kohn describes the inherent treachery of the norm-referenced test:

No matter how many students take an NRT [norm-referenced test], no matter how well or poorly they were taught, no matter how difficult the questions are, the pattern of results is guaranteed to be the same: Exactly 10 percent of those who take the test will score in the top 10 percent. And half will always fall below the median. That’s not because our schools are failing; that’s because of what the word median means.

And as professor of education Wayne Au explained in 2011, when he was handed a bullhorn at the Occupy Education protest outside the headquarters of Gates Foundation, “If all the students passed the test you advocate, that test would immediately be judged an invalid metric, and any measure of students which mandates the failure of students is an invalid measure.”

Researchers have long known that what standardized tests measure above all else is a student’s access to resources.

Unsurprisingly, the Gates Foundation was not swayed by the logic of Au’s argument. That is because standardized testing serves to reinforce the mythology of a meritocracy in which those on the top have achieved their position rightfully—because of their hard work, their dedication to hitting the books, and their superior intelligence as proven by their scores. But what researchers have long known is that what standardized tests measure above all else is a student’s access to resources. The most damning truth about standardized tests is that they are a better indicator of a student’s zip code than a student’s aptitude. Wealthier, and predominantly whiter, districts score better on tests. Their scores do not reflect the intelligence of wealthier, mostly white students when compared to those of lower-income students and students of color, but do reflect the advantages that wealthier children have—books in the home, parents with more time to read with them, private tutoring, access to test-prep agencies, high-quality health care, and access to good food, to name a few. This is why attaching high stakes to these exams only serves to exacerbate racial and class inequality. As Boston University economics professors Olesya Baker and Kevin Lang’s 2013 study, “The School to Prison Pipeline Exposed,” reveals, the increases in the use of high-stakes standardized high school exit exams are linked to higher incarceration rates. Arne Duncan’s refusal to address the concerns raised by this study exposes the bankruptcy of testocratic policy.

Hypocrisy of the Testocracy

At first glance it would be easy to conclude that the testocracy’s strategy for public schools is the result of profound ignorance. After all, members of the testocracy have never smelled a free or reduced-price lunch yet throw a tantrum when public school advocates suggest poverty is a substantial factor in educational outcomes. The testocracy has never had to puzzle over the conundrum of having more students than available chairs in the classroom, yet they are the very same people who claim class size doesn’t matter in educational outcomes. The bubble of luxury surrounding the testocracy has convinced many that most testocrats are too far removed from the realities facing the majority of US residents to ever understand the damage caused by the high-stakes bubble tests they peddle. While it is true that the corporate reform moguls are completely out of touch with the vast majority of people, their strategy for remaking our schools on a business model is not the result of ignorance but of arrogance, not of misunderstanding but of the profit motive, not of silliness but rather of a desire for supremacy.

In fact, you could argue that the MAP test boycott did not actually begin at Garfield High School. A keen observer might recognize that the boycott of the MAP test—and so many other standardized tests—began in earnest at schools like Seattle’s elite private Lakeside High School, alma mater of Bill Gates, where he sends his children, because, of course, Lakeside, like one-percenter schools elsewhere, would never inundate its students with standardized tests. These academies, predominantly serving the children of the financially fortunate, shield students from standardized tests because they want their children to be allowed to think outside the bubble test, to develop critical thinking skills and prioritize time to explore art, music, drama, athletics, and debate. Gates values Lakeside because of its lovely campus, where the average class size is sixteen, the library contains some twenty thousand volumes, and the new sports facility offers cryotherapy and hydrotherapy spas. Moreover, while Gates, President Obama, and Secretary of Education Duncan are all parents of school-age children, none of those children attend schools that use the CCSS or take Common Core exams. As Dao X. Tran, then PTA co-chair at Castle Bridge Elementary School, put it (in chapter 20 of More Than a Score): “These officials don’t even send their children to public schools. They are failing our children, yet they push for our children’s teachers to be accountable based on children’s test data. All while they opt for their own children to go to schools that don’t take these tests, that have small class sizes and project-based, hands-on, arts-infused learning—that’s what we want for our children!” The superrich are not failing to understand the basics of how to provide a nurturing education for the whole child. The problem is that they believe this type of education should be reserved only for their own children.

A Brief History of Test-defying

The United States has a long history of using standardized testing for the purposes of ranking and sorting youth into different strata of society. In fact, standardized tests originally entered the public schools with the eugenics movement, a white-supremacist ideology cloaked in the shabby garments of fraudulent science that became fashionable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Rethinking Schools editorialized,

The United States has a long history of using intelligence tests to support white supremacy and class stratification. Standardized tests first entered the public schools in the 1920s, pushed by eugenicists whose pseudoscience promoted the “natural superiority” of wealthy, white, U.S.-born males. High-stakes standardized tests have disguised class and race privilege as merit ever since. The consistent use of test scores to demonstrate first a “mental ability” gap and now an “achievement” gap exposes the intrinsic nature of these tests: They are built to maintain inequality, not to serve as an antidote to educational disparities.

When the first “common schools” began in the late 1800s, industrialists quickly recognized an opportunity to shape the schools in the image of their factories. These early “education reformers” recognized the value of using standardized tests—first developed in the form of IQ tests used to sort military recruits for World War I—to evaluate the efficiency of the teacher workforce in producing the “student-product.” Proud eugenicist and Princeton University professor Carl Brigham left his school during World War I to implement IQ testing as an army psychologist. Upon returning to Princeton, Brigham developed the SAT exam as the admissions gatekeeper to Princeton, and the test confirmed in his mind that whites born in the United States were the most intelligent of all peoples. As Alan Stoskopf wrote, “By the early 1920s, more than 2 million American school children were being tested primarily for academic tracking purposes. At least some of the decisions to allocate resources and select students for academic or vocational courses were influenced by eugenic notions of student worth.”

Some of the most important early voices in opposition to intelligence testing came from leading African American scholars.

Resistance to these exams surely began the first time a student bubbled in every “A” on the page in defiance of the entire testing process. Yet, beyond these individual forms of protest, an active minority of educators, journalists, labor groups, and parents resisted these early notions of using testing to rank intelligence. Some of the most important early voices in opposition to intelligence testing—especially in service of ranking the races—came from leading African American scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Horace Mann Bond, and Howard Long. Du Bois recalled in 1940, “It was not until I was long out of school and indeed after the [First] World War that there came the hurried use of the new technique of psychological tests, which were quickly adjusted so as to put black folk absolutely beyond the possibility of civilization.”

In a statement that is quite apparently lost on today’s testocracy, Horace Mann Bond, in his work “Intelligence Tests and Propaganda,” wrote:

But so long as any group of men attempts to use these tests as funds of information for the approximation of crude and inaccurate generalizations, so long must we continue to cry, “Hold!” To compare the crowded millions of New York’s East Side with the children of Morningside Heights [an upper-class neighborhood at the time] indeed involves a great contradiction; and to claim that the results of the tests given to such diverse groups, drawn from such varying strata of the social complex, are in any wise accurate, is to expose a fatuous sense of unfairness and lack of appreciation of the great environmental factors of modern urban life.

This history of test-defiers was largely buried until the mass uprisings of the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s transformed public education. In the course of these broad mass movements, parents, students, teachers, and activists fought to integrate the schools, budget for equitable funding, institute ethnic studies programs, and even to redefine the purpose of school.

In the Jim Crow–segregated South, literacy was inherently political and employed as a barrier to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote. The great activist and educator Myles Horton was a founder of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee that would go on to help organize the Citizenship Schools of the mid-1950s and 1960s. The Citizenship Schools’ mission was to create literacy programs to help disenfranchised Southern blacks achieve access to the voting booth. Hundreds of thousands of African Americans attended the Citizenship Schools, which launched one of the most important educational programs of the civil rights movement, redefining the purpose of education and the assessment of educational outcomes. Horton described one of the Citizenship Schools he helped to organize, saying, “It was not a literacy class. It was a community organization. . . . They were talking about using their citizenship to do something, and they named it a Citizenship School, not a literacy school. That helped with the motivation.” By the end of the class more than 80 percent of those students passed the final examination, which was to go down to the courthouse and register to vote!

What the Testocracy Wants

The great civil rights movements of the past have reimagined education as a means to creating a more just society. The testocracy, too, has a vision for reimagining the education system and it is flat-out chilling. The testocracy is relentlessly working on new methods to reduce students to data points that can be used to rank, punish, and manipulate. Like something out of a dystopian sci-fi film, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spent $1.4 million to develop bio-metric bracelets designed to send a small current across the skin to measure changes in electrical charges as the sympathetic nervous system responds to stimuli. These “Q Sensors” would then be used to monitor a student’s “excitement, stress, fear, engagement, boredom and relaxation through the skin.” Presumably, then, VAM assessments could be extended to evaluate teachers based on this biometric data. As Diane Ravitch explained to Reuters when the story broke in the spring of 2012, “They should devote more time to improving the substance of what is being taught . . . and give up all this measurement mania.”

But the testocracy remains relentless in its quest to give up on teaching and devote itself to data collection. In a 2011 TIME magazine feature on the future of education, readers are asked to “imagine walking into a classroom and seeing no one in the front of the classroom. Instead you’re led to a computer terminal at a desk and told this will be your teacher for the course. The only adults around are a facilitator to make sure that you stay on task and to fix any tech problems that may arise.” TIME goes on to point out, “For some Florida students, computer-led instruction is a reality. Within the Miami-Dade County Public School district alone, 7,000 students are receiving this form of education, including six middle and K–8 schools, according to the New York Times.” This approach to schooling is known as “e-learning labs,” and from the perspective of the testocracy, if education is about getting a high score, then one hardly needs nurturing, mentorship, or human contact to succeed. Computers can be used to add value—the value of rote memorization, discipline, and basic literacy skills—to otherwise relatively worthless students. Here, then, is a primary objective of an education system run by the testocracy: replace the compassionate hand of the educator with the cold, invisible, all-thumbs hand of the free market.

On pi day, how scientists use this number (Science Daily)

17/03/2015UncategorizedEducação, Estética da ciência, História, Matemáticarenzotaddei

Date: March 12, 2015

Source: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Summary: If you like numbers, you will love March 14, 2015. When written as a numerical date, it’s 3/14/15, corresponding to the first five digits of pi (3.1415) — a once-in-a-century coincidence! Pi Day, which would have been the 136th birthday of Albert Einstein, is a great excuse to eat pie, and to appreciate how important the number pi is to math and science.

Take JPL Education’s Pi Day challenge featuring real-world questions about NASA spacecraft — then tweet your answers to @NASAJPL_Edu using the hashtag #PiDay. Answers will be revealed on March 16. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If you like numbers, you will love March 14, 2015. When written as a numerical date, it’s 3/14/15, corresponding to the first five digits of pi (3.1415) — a once-in-a-century coincidence! Pi Day, which would have been the 136th birthday of Albert Einstein, is a great excuse to eat pie, and to appreciate how important the number pi is to math and science.

Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle. Any time you want to find out the distance around a circle when you have the distance across it, you will need this formula.

Despite its frequent appearance in math and science, you can’t write pi as a simple fraction or calculate it by dividing two integers (…3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3…). For this reason, pi is said to be “irrational.” Pi’s digits extend infinitely and without any pattern, adding to its intrigue and mystery.

Pi is useful for all kinds of calculations involving the volume and surface area of spheres, as well as for determining the rotations of circular objects such as wheels. That’s why pi is important for scientists who work with planetary bodies and the spacecraft that visit them.

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, pi makes a frequent appearance. It’s a staple for Marc Rayman, chief engineer and mission director for NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. Dawn went into orbit around dwarf planet Ceres on March 6. Rayman uses a formula involving pi to calculate the length of time it takes the spacecraft to orbit Ceres at any given altitude. You can also use pi to think about Earth’s rotation.

“On Pi Day, I will think about the nature of a day, as Earth’s rotation on its axis carries me on a circle 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers) in circumference, which I calculated using pi and my latitude,” Rayman said.

Steve Vance, a planetary chemist and astrobiologist at JPL, also frequently uses pi. Lately, he has been using pi in his calculations of how much hydrogen might be available for chemical processes, and possibly biology, in the ocean beneath the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

“To calculate the hydrogen produced in a given unit area, we divide by Europa’s surface area, which is the area of a sphere with a radius of 970 miles (1,561 kilometers),” Vance said.

Luisa Rebull, a research scientist at NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, also considers pi to be important in astronomy. When calculating the distance between stars in a projection of the sky, scientists use a special kind of geometry called spherical trigonometry. That’s an extension of the geometry you probably learned in middle school, but it takes place on a sphere rather than a flat plane.

“In order to do these calculations, we need to use formulae, the derivation of which uses pi,” she said. “So, this is pi in the sky!”

Make sure to note when the date and time spell out the first 10 digits of pi: 3.141592653. On 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m., it is literally the most perfectly “pi” time of the century — so grab a slice of your favorite pie, and celebrate math!

For more fun with pi, check out JPL Education’s second annual Pi Day challenge, featuring real-world NASA math problems. NASA/JPL education specialists, with input from scientists and engineers, have crafted questions involving pi aimed at students in grades 4 through 11, but open to everyone. Take a crack at them at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=11257

Share your answers on Twitter by tweeting to @NASAJPL_Edu with the hashtag #PiDay. Answers will be revealed on March 16 (aka Pi + 2 Day!).

Resources for educators, including printable Pi Day challenge classroom handouts, are available at: www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/piday2015

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.