FROM SCHOOL IN QUILOMBO TO ESCOLA QUILOMBOLA: TERRITORY, CURRICULUM AND KNOWLEDGE IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZILIAN EDUCATIONAL POLICY

Abstract

This article analyzes quilombola school education in the recent context of Brazilian racial equity policies, taking as its axis the relationship between territory, curriculum, community and knowledge production. The problem investigated is the following: what differentiates a school merely located in quilombola territory from an effectively quilombola school education? Based on a documentary analysis of Resolution CNE/CEB nº 8/2012, which established the National Curricular Guidelines for Quilombola School Education in Basic Education, and recent policies of the Ministry of Education and the National Education Development Fund between 2024 and 2026, the article maintains, in dialogue with Milton Santos and the quilombola thinker Antônio Bispo dos Santos, that the difference between the two situations is not location, but of institutional recognition of the territory as a historical, political and symbolic space for the production of collective life, and of effective incorporation of knowledge, community autonomy and quilombola teaching into the school's pedagogical project. The partnership between the FNDE and the United Nations Office of Project Services is examined, which resulted in a new architectural reference project for quilombola and indigenous schools in 2026, and the Petronilha Beatriz Gonçalves e Silva Seal, created by the MEC in 2025 to recognize education departments committed to quilombola school education. The article argues that the recent expansion of physical infrastructure, although relevant, is not equivalent, in isolation, to the implementation of quilombola school education provided for in the 2012 legislation, and warns against readings that treat quilombola communities as culturally homogeneous.