AFRICA IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HISTORY TEXTBOOKS: CURRICULUM, DECOLONIALITY, AND EUROCENTRIC RESIDUES IN THE REPRESENTATION OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENTE

Abstract

The teaching of African History in Brazil endured centuries of institutional silencing, which relegated the African continent to a secondary role in school narratives. For decades, teaching materials associated Africa almost exclusively with slavery, the slave trade, and colonization, reinforcing stereotypes of backwardness and dependency. Against this backdrop, this article investigates how History textbook collections for the final years of Elementary Education represent Africa and to what extent these approaches engage with decolonial education and the requirements of Law No. 10,639/2003. The main objective is to analyze how this subject is incorporated into these textbooks, identifying the persistence of Eurocentric perspectives, historical gaps, and possible paths toward a decolonial approach. This is a qualitative study of a bibliographic and documentary nature, based on content analysis of textbooks approved by the National Textbook Program (PNLD) and on the examination of regulatory frameworks such as Law No. 10,639/2003, Law No. 11,645/2008, the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic-Racial Relations (DCNERER), and the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC). The results indicate that, although legislation has expanded the thematic presence of Africa, Eurocentric narratives persist, obscuring the continent’s historical, political, economic, and cultural diversity. This situation requires critical intervention by teachers in the classroom.