A look at laicity in public schools in Brazil and France (1996-2022)

• Grant number: 22/10022-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: March 19, 2023
• End date: June 18, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Fundamentals of Education
• Principal Investigator: Guilherme Ramalho Arduini
• Grantee: Guilherme Ramalho Arduini
• Host Investigator: Poucet Bruno
• Host Institution: Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia de São Paulo (IFSP). Campus Hortolândia. Hortolândia , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV), France

Abstract

This research will examine the relations between the state and Christian churches in Brazil between 1996 and 2022. The initial date is marked, in Brazil, by the approval of the Law of Directives and Bases of Education (LDB), substantially altered the following year with the inclusion of religious teaching in the compulsory curriculum of basic education. Still at the national level, the final cut-off of the research is the end of the Bolsonaro presidency, in which neo-Pentecostal groups had broad access to funds and positions of definition of public policies in education. In the same year as the approval of the LDB in Brazil, the French Council of State made public decisions about the use of the veil in school environments. The use or prohibition of the veil is one of the milestones in the current discussion on secularism in France and symbolises the difficulty in dealing with the growing Muslim population, a theme repeatedly mobilised by the French extreme right, including in the scenario of the 2022 presidential elections. The aim of the research is to analyse the role of actors linked to the theme of secularism (churches, teaching unions, opinion groups) in the definition of public policies on education. The documentation to be consulted consists of the texts and audiovisuals produced by groups constituted in defence of secularism in dialogue with church-related bodies. The literature on comparative education indicates methodological issues relevant to the type of collation to be carried out and cross-history also contributes to see how some intellectual issues arise only in the connection between different regions of the world approached by historical and social issues comparable to each other. The research will be enriched by the dialogue with the French researcher Bruno Poucet, whose work has as one of its axes the analysis of the different models of laicity in force in the Fifth French Republic. It is worth highlighting Poucet's long-standing dialogue with researchers from other Latin American countries. (AU)