Challenges of multicultural curriculum in higher education for indigenous people

Abstract

This article assesses how the Brazilian university is facing curriculum challenges to meet the demands of indigenous students in the face of the recently institutionalized access of indigenous peoples to higher education. It presents the trajectory of indigenous school education up to university in the early 2000s, after the changes promoted by the Federal Constitution of 1988, which recognized the indigenous' right to alterity. The central question raised is: is the higher education curriculum in line with the multicultural perspective? The article shows a portrait of the Brazilian situation, based on documentary research done in governmental and nongovernmental sites, and news portals. With theoretical discussions about what the multicultural curriculum is, the paper stresses that, due to the problems reported, the practice of affirmative actions to promote indigenous access to higher education has been limited to remedial multiculturalism. The paper also brings the results of a survey with indigenous students in one of the most popular courses at the Federal University of Pará, which has revealed contradictions and resignation: interviewees indicate that there is curricular ethnocentrism, but they say the training is satisfactory for the exercise of their professions. We discuss the phenomenon in light of the similarity with North American curricular multiculturalism. Results indicate that equal access to education is not achieved simply by equal access to a hegemonic curriculum. We suggest thinking curricula that consider the multiple identities and differences in our society, as well as how they are constantly produced and reproduced through power relations.