Identidades encruzilhadas: o cruzo entre as identidades raciais e docentes de professores e professoras de química da cidade de Salvador - Bahia

Abstract

The educational space, specifically, the school environment(s), present multiple fertile contexts for understanding some of the social problems present and (re)produced in these places. Racial issues are good illustrative examples of this context, which when crossed with the dynamics of the teaching profession, also endowed with numerous problems, questions and discontent, produce affectations, violence and profound implications in the professional practice of teachers. This research, committed to the lives, in particular, of professors of chemistry, understands the importance of recording, listening and the multiplicity of sensations and knowledge that can emerge from the life stories of professors. The inspirations for the development of this research arise from my own professional experiences as a (black) chemistry teacher marked by (non) recognition and by numerous processes of professional (dis)identification. In this way, the objective of the research is to understand the intersections between racial identities and the teaching identities of teachers of chemistry working in basic education in the city of Salvador-Bahia. This investigation falls within the field of qualitative research, using the biographical-narrative method, particularly the Life Stories methodology. Considering the latest census data from the IBGE, according to the race/color criterion, the population of Salvador self-classifies itself in about 82% as black and 17% as white. Thus, we invited four chemistry professors, two of them self-declared as black, one male and one female, and two self-declared white, each male and female. Data were produced from sharing and listening to the life stories of these professionals, through semi-structured interviews carried out virtually. After these meetings, transcriptions were made and, later, with the aid of the thematic analysis method, the biographical data were interpreted. The results demonstrate that racialized bodies underlie black and white racial identities. There are relationships of abebelity in the ways in which black professors signify their racial identities and among white professors there is a reproduction of aspects of critical whiteness. The characteristics of teachers' identities are identified in the continuous process that demarcates the work and performance of teachers, which is to become a teacher, within biographical conjunctures and contexts of social transformations, educational reforms and influences of multiple processes involving teacher training. In addition, the dimensions of racial identities are present in professional practices, inside and outside chemistry classes, promoting intersections and influences on teaching identities.