Contributions of cultural-historical theory to the understanding of racial issues in school education

Abstract

This paper focuses the contributions of cultural-historical theory to the discussion of racial issues in the context of school education. Therefore, it addresses points related to the constitution of the subject, the importance of language and the production of sense and meaning, based on contemporary authors who studied the Vygotskian perspective. The theorical study seeks to contextualize Vigotski’s thought by associating concepts of his work to the problem of racism and racial discrimination, which structure social relations in Brazil. In order to present a psychology capable of enlightening racial issues, it seeks, in the foundations of the historical-cultural theory and its interlocutors, a contribution to the understanding of the conceptions of human development and the role of ethnic-racial relations in the formation of subjectivity, particularly in the black population. The impacts of Brazilian structural racism on the process of human subjectivation are also discussed, taking education as capable of contributing to the perpetuation of racial prejudice, while enabling the emergence of initiatives to resolve this problem. It appears that the cultural-historical theory can be constituted as a basic foundation for understanding the multiple racial relations that structure educational spaces, allowing the understanding of meanings and senses elaborated by population regarding the place of black people in a society in which inequalities between white and non-white people prevail.