Experiências de jovens afrodescendentes/negras na educação profissional: contribuições ao serviço social em Portugal e Brasil

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the expressions of the oppression of “race”, gender and class in professional education to contribute to the intervention of Social Work. Prioritized the experiences of young people of African descent based on the narratives of professional and techincal high school course from the Portugal and Brazil. Regarding its nature, this is a qualitative research within a critical paradigm and applied dialectical and case study methods. Through individual interviews and focus groups, it obtained the participation of young people of African descent to understand mainly the follow issues: ethnic-racial identification; socio-racial inequalities in access to school and courses; the representations and conflicts present in the school; oppressions and resistance in the lives of young of African descent / black women. The results show that the social identities of young women permeate the ethnic-racial conflicts of each context, articulating, especially, the categories of “race”, ethnicity, nation, nationality and culture in Portugal and “race” and mestizaje in Brazil. There are expressions of socio -racial inequalities in education in both contexts, although they have particularities regarding the structure of politics and forms of social reproduction of structural inequalities, racism and sexism. Experiences with discrimination are common to young women in both countries, who have different ways of addressing them by recognizing them and offering resistance. It’s important that the formation and intervention in Social Work are attentive to the different projects in dispute in the social reality that are inserted once articulating with perspectives that are concatenated with the ethical principles of the profession and the political dimension of the professional category is a condition for printing anti-oppressive and anti-racist practices. The intersection of several categories such as “race”, class and gender to analyze social reality contributed to present possibilities of professional intervention in the micro, meso and macro contexts of practice based on the experiences analyzed in this research. We conclude, albeit with so many challenges and inexhaustible analyzes to be done, that antioppressive and anti-racist practices are fundamental for associating oppression systems and positioning themselves politically in front of them. In this context, Social Work intervention has much to contribute to confront the hegemony that denies inequality, racism, sexism and all forms of oppression.