Education Trends and Brazil’s Development: Slavery – Industrialization – Present Day

Introduction

Human Rights Education (HRE) is based on the concept that empowerment brings development.  Democracy shifts when indigent populations become educated, because more voices are heard.  As Professor Marks notes, “the most effective means of enhancing people’s capabilities is to facilitate their own social transformation through participation in the decisions that affect development.”[1] Education not only brings new information to underserved groups, but it expands freedoms enabling more to contribute to society…ultimately leading to development.

The objective of this article is to illustrate how education trends have shifted in Brazil over time, causing mass inequality and underdevelopment. Examining three periods help draw conclusions.  First, slavery and the abolition era represent the initial platform that my argument is based upon.  Next, industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s further supports my case.  Finally, emphasis on Brazil’s current educational structure, validates present-day realities.  Course concepts, supported by empirical evidence, are interwoven throughout this article.

Brazil Overview

Brazil has one of the largest distributions of income in the world.  With approximately 200 million inhabitants, the richest 10 percent of Brazilians receive 50 percent of the nation’s income, while the poorest 10 percent receive less than one percent.[2] Poverty is omnipresent:  millions live on a few dollars per day suffering from inequitable access to social services.  In large cities, urban slums span the horizon, illustrating the extreme gap between rich and poor.  The majority of Brazil’s impoverished are Afro-Brazilian (black) or pardo (mixture of white, black, and indigenous).  What has caused Brazil’s mass inequality and underdevelopment?

Slavery

When Brazil’s sugar industry expanded throughout the early seventeenth century, slave labor followed.  “Freedom of choice and the power to control one’s life [for Afro-Brazilians]”[3] was obsolete.  Approximately three and a half million slaves were transported to Brazil between the sixteenth and nineteenth century[4] (the greatest volume in the Americas).  Slaves were the driving force behind Brazil’s initial economic growth, but mass inequality arose. “The overwhelming fraction of the populations [between black and white] made the distribution of wealth and human capital extremely unequal.”[5] In addition, Portuguese society was an aristocracy under a monarch and inequality was a dominant force that kept the elite in control – power remained in the hands of few.   Families and personal networks dominated the political and social structure, establishing a platform of what Brazilian society would eventually become.

When slavery ended in 1888, freed slaves were not ready for their new rights in society.  Federal polices established by the elite ostracized Afro-Brazilians and as a result, blacks were not equally represented in the decision making process.  The conditions of absolute and extreme poverty, “characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs (food, water, health, shelter, education)”[6], [7] was ubiquitous.  High illiteracy rates among freed slaves created an even greater divide.

Throughout the twentieth century, Brazil was known for having one of the worst records on literacy and school completion rates among major Latin American countries.  Brazil’s first university was not founded until 1932, whereas universities in Mexico and Peru had begun as early as the sixteenth century.[8] In the early years, only the elite attended universities, while “voices of the impoverished [remained] silenced.”[9] This late start regarding higher education not only amplified inequality, but it hindered HRE – very few were empowered to bring about economic development.[10]

Industrialization

During the 1960s and 1970s, Brazil’s GDP grew through protectionist import substitution industrialization policies.  As industries expanded, the demand for skilled labor increased.[11] However, there was a shortage of university graduates to meet demand.  The majority of Brazilians remained uneducated, finishing school after fourth grade.  Income distribution and the workforce became even more divided between two categories: managers and laborers.

During this era of mass industrialization, urban populations grew.  Millions of poor rural Brazilians relocated in large cities searching for work and low-level vacancies became more scarce.  Public resources could not sustain societal demands from mass migration flows; the construction of houses, schools, and hospitals were insufficient.  Enormous negative spillovers created an even larger income gap and those who couldn’t find jobs began settling in squatter communities known as favelas.[12] Fifty years later, Rio de Janeiro has more than 900 favelas that house approximately 30 percent of the city’s seven million.

Present Day

Although Brazil’s GDP success stories receive continuous international attention, enormous domestic societal problems still exist.  Public primary education serves lower income students, whereas public university education serves the middle and upper class; the best universities in Brazil are public and tuition is free.  Without attending private primary school, however, it is extremely difficult to enter a public university. [13]

This unique HRE dynamic not only reinforces inequality, but in a similar sense, it models the educational structure that existed a century ago.  Although lower income students now have access to higher education (at private universities), high paying jobs favor public university graduates.  Thus, income rewards lean heavier toward those who have followed the elite educational path:  private primary education –> public university –> managerial role –> high income.

Conclusion – Education and Development

The aforementioned trends illustrate the lack of HRE activities in Brazil (goal-oriented education that empowers the underserved to take action)[14] and the effects on development.  Although higher learning opportunities have improved in recent times,[15] the educated elite continue to dominate high-level positions in society.  This small percentage—with a voice—has ignored development for centuries.  Roots of slavery and the Portuguese segregation model that benefited the privileged during Brazil’s colonial period, therefore, cannot be ignored in the present environment.  Income inequality and persecution against Afro-Brazilians is deeply engraved in Brazil’s cultural context.

Although industrialization united diverse ethnicities, the gap between skilled and unskilled labor increased as cities expanded.  As a result, urban slums have become a large component of Brazil’s societal framework and millions have been subjected to misery.  After centuries of inequality, narrowing income distribution will require collaboration at all levels of governments, NGOs, private enterprises, and society at-large.  The challenges are tremendous, but with sustained progressive social policies and GDP growth, future generations should take a step forward.

EXHIBIT  – A

EXHIBIT - B

EXHIBIT - C

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[1] Marks, Stephen P., “Human Rights in Development: The Significance for Health,” in Sofia Gruskin, Michael Grodin, George Annas, and Stephen P. Marks Perspectives on Health and Human Rights, Taylor and Francis, pg. 13, 2005.

[2]Skidmore, Thomas E., “Brazil’s Persistent Income Inequality: Lessons from History,” Latin America Politics and Society, 2004. http://findarticles.com.

[3] Deepa, Narayan, Chambers, Robert, Shah, Meera, Petesch, Patti, “Global Synthesis: Consultations with the Poor,” Washington, DC: World Bank, pg. 12, 1999.

[4] Slave Trade Archives, “Slavery in Brazil,” United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, Unesco.org.

[5] Sokoloff, Kehheth L. and Engerman, Stanley L., “History Lessons: Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 14, No 3, pg. 220, 2000.

[6] Sengupta,  Arjun, “Report of the Independent Expert on the Question of Human Rights and Extreme Poverty,” UN Doc. A/HRC/5/3, 31, Pg. 6, May 2007.

[7] “Economists define poverty in its extreme form as the inability of households to meet basic survival needs (food, health, safe drinking water, rudimentary shelter, essential clothes, and basic education).” Extract from a chapter by Stephen P. Marks and Ajay Mahal for Freedom from Poverty as a Human Rights: Economic Perspectives, pg 1, UNESCO and OUP, 2010.

[8]Skidmore, Thomas E., “Brazil’s Persistent Income Inequality: Lessons from History. Latin American Politics and Society,” Vol. 46, Issue 2, p138, 2004.

[9] Deepa, Narayan, Chambers, Robert, Shah, Meera, Petesch, Patti, “Global Synthesis: Consultations with the Poor,” Washington, DC: World Bank, pg. 12, 1999.

[10] “Being denied education…is tantamount to being excluded from modern society, with its attendant social and psychological consequences.  The rights to education become elements in the social bases of self-respect.” Alston, Philip, Robinson, Mary, “Human Rights and Development Toward Mutual Reinforcement, Center of Human Rights and Global Justice NYU of Law, Oxford University Press, pg 70, 2005.

[11] Teresa, Maria, Mantoan, Egler, and Armando Valente, Jose, “Special Education Reform in Brazil: A historical Analysis of Educational Policies,” European Journal of Special Needs Education, Vol. 13, No. 1, pg. 11, 1998.

[12] A recent study showed that during the 1960s and 1970s, the poorest 50 percent of the population accounted for only 11.6 percent of the national income, while the richest 20 percent accounted for 63.4 percent. Teresa, Maria, Mantoan, Egler, Armando Valente, Jose, “Special Education Reform in Brazil: A historical Analysis of Educational Policies,” European Journal of Special Needs Education, Vol. 13, No. 1, pg. 11, 1998.

[13] According to The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the percentage of black and pardo Brazilians over twenty five with a college degree is approximately four percent, compared to white Brazilian’s which is thirteen percent. Redação Terra, IBGE: n° de brancos com diploma é maior que o de negros, 2008. http://noticias.terra.com.br.

[14] Marks, Stephen P., “Human Rights in Development: The Significance for Health,” in Sofia Gruskin, Michael Grodin, George Annas, and Stephen P. Marks Perspectives on Health and Human Rights, Taylor and Francis, pg. 13, 2005.

[15] Brazil has the world’s fourth largest student population and the number of university students has increased approximately 20 percent in the past five years to three million. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, Redação Terra, IBGE: n° de brancos com diploma é maior que o de negros, 2008, http://noticias.terra.com.br.

© 2010, Zak Paster. All rights reserved.

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