Dialogar para vencer barreiras: o papel da comunicação na conjuntura crítica do novo ensino médio para indígenas na Escola Estadual Povo Indígena Hexkaryana

Abstract

This research analyzes the implications of implementing the public curriculum within the context of the New Secondary Education policy (NEM), with emphasis on the Escola Estadual Povo Indígena Hexkaryana, located in Kassawá Village, in the state of Amazonas. The main focus lies on the construction of ethnolinguistic identity as an essential tool for communication and citizenship formation. The NEM proposal, grounded in the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), aims to expand curricular flexibility and foster student protagonism; however, it faces significant challenges when applied in bilingual and community-based schools in the Amazon, particularly due to the lack of infrastructure, the absence of pedagogical materials in Indigenous languages, insufficient teacher training to operate within intercultural curricula, and the disregard for the sociocultural and communicational specificities of these communities. The study revisits the historical evolution of Secondary Education in Brazil and in Amazonas, situating the analysis within Law No. 6,303/2023, which recognizes Indigenous languages as intangible cultural heritage and establishes their co-official status. The research investigates to what extent the absence of communicational practices and cultural adaptations in the implementation of the Indigenous New Secondary Education (NEMI) by Seduc/AM compromises the protection of the Hixkaryana language and the strengthening of ethnolinguistic identity at the Escola Estadual Povo Indígena Hexkaryana. Taking as its object of study the communicational dynamics and the treatment of cultural specificities in the NEMI implementation process, the central objective is to understand how the lack of educommunicative strategies and cultural integration interferes with identity affirmation and the linguistic vitality of the Hixkaryana language. More specifically, the study examines the incorporation of language and cultural traditions into the curriculum; the communicational training offered to Indigenous education professionals; and the pedagogical practices, infrastructure conditions, and technological resources that either support or weaken interculturality within the school context. Structured in three chapters, the research articulates a critical framework on communication and educational reforms, discusses communication as a field of dispute in ensuring Indigenous pedagogical autonomy, and presents the methodological pathway, composed of document analysis, case study, and a survey of educommunicative practices. Bardin’s (2016) content analysis method guides the examination of data in three stages: bibliographic survey, documentary analysis, and systematization of information. The theoretical framework mobilizes concepts of the State (Dussel, 1994) and the Expanded State (Oliveira, 2018), connected to Law No. 13,415/2017, which restructured the Secondary Education curriculum (Brazil, 2017). The analysis draws on contributions from Secadi (2016), Ramos (2008–2017), Ciavatta, Franco, and Ramos (2012), Pelissari (2020, 2023), as well as Magalhães (2005) and Frigotto (2000–2009). The results aim to contribute to reflections on intercultural educational policies in Amazonas and to the strengthening of Hixkaryana ethnolinguistic identity within NEMI. It is concluded that the protagonism of these organizations in Secondary Education in Amazonas does not extend to Indigenous education, which remains marginalized in the process of implementing the NEM.