DIVERSITY, TEACHING AND LANGUAGE: WHAT CHALLENGES AND COMMITMENTS WILL THE CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGE PROFESSIONAL FACE?

In general, diversity can be conceptualized as the expression of opposites (BARROS, 2008). Despite the homogenization of several kinds and in the various areas promoted by the current process of globalization, the so-called ‘flat world’ will never be able to express the whole without considering the parts. In such a context of different ways of being in the world, language learning is a crucial condition for citizenship education, it is the key to get to know other people (BYRAM, 2006). Because of that, educational processes have been going through significant changes, fostering, among other things, postures aligned with the new world order, where the preparation of learners to able to exercise their rights at a global level and take advantage of mechanisms which guarantee their intercultural citizenship, has continually gaining ground. Linguistic education has been taking a similar path. In its scope, discourses and pedagogical practices which take into consideration the sociopolitical character of any educational process start to be required. In other words, it has been demanded an egalitarian linguistic education which, above all, struggles for diversity and is able to guarantee total inclusion, creating ample opportunities, especially for those learners who come from less privileged classes and historically marginalized groups. Having human diversity in the background, the article aims to discuss the role of the contemporary language teaching professional, highlighting the challenges and commitments which await them at different levels, and the central position this professional occupies at this crucial moment of the global society in which we fight for the historical, cultural and social (re)construction of our differences.

PRÁTICAS REPRODUTIVISTAS E TRANSFORMAÇÕES NAS ESCOLAS PÚBLICAS

O objetivo deste artigo é considerar algumas perspectivas teóricas que analisam a educação enquanto espaço de produção, reprodução e transformação do conhecimento e das práticas educacionais no ensino público brasileiro. Os problemas sociais e sociológicos da educação podem ser melhor compreendidos se recuperarmos os propostas teóricas de Marx, Durkheim e Bourdieu. Se estes autores problematizam a educação como uma instituição de reprodução autoritária das normas, valores e práticas sociais da cultura dominante, no entanto, abrindo o debate descobre-se a possibilidade de transformações nos sistemas de ensino. Embora defina a educação pública como uma estrutura complexa que engloba desde os atores da escola, a comunidade e as instâncias governamentais, numa intricada trama que tende à homogeneização em um sistema de currículo único nacional, pode-se pensar também a escola em sua especificidade, enquanto espaço sócio-cultural singular onde transitam atores desejantes, interesses coletivos e particulares que podem superar o modelo de educação centralizadora do Estado. Ao considerar o sentido polissêmico da educação, sua face reprodutora e sua face transformadora salientam as contradições que abrem espaço para a inovação e superação da repetitividade dos modelos pedagógicos generalizantes. Assim olhar a escola como espaço sócio-cultural peculiar é pensar, dialeticamente, nas relações educacionais que ocorrem no interior das escolas, da comunidade onde ela esta inserida e sua relação mais ampla com a sociedade e os projetos didático-pedagógicos encaminhados pelas políticas públicas governamentais. Afirma-se que novas formas de sociabilidade educacional requerem novas práticas de intervenção e participação, pela comunidade escolar e pela sociedade civil nas políticas públicas, mas que podem ser teorizadas a partir dessas três perspectivas teóricas clássicas e caras ao pensamento sociológico.

A fé contra o crime: A bakhtinian analysis of the image of evangelicals in Brazil in the cover of Veja magazine

The present paper, based on the concept of surplus of vision discussed in some works of the bakhtinian Circle, as, mainly Bakhtin (2010a) and Bakhtin (2010b), has the main aim to analyse the image of evangelicals in a cover delivered by Veja magazine from the bakhtinian categories of exotopy, otherness and expressive intonation and, consequently, the meaning effects resulting from them. Therefore, anchored by the perspective of Bakhtinian Studies (BS), we analysed the magazine cover, seeking to apprehend the meanings constructed by this genre of verb-visual basis. To the constitution of the corpus of analysis, we selected the cover of the edition 1555, published on July, 15, 1998, entitled A fé contra o crime: Numa cruzada em presídios e redutos de traficantes, os evangélicos estão convertendo bandidos em soldados de Jesus, to analyse in which way the magazine, from its discursive place, appropriates the image of the evangelicals and represents it with its intonations in its statements. From the analysis, we can state that Veja constructs an image that tends to the homogenization of the evangelicals in Brazil, from its surplus of vision, with its tone of sarcasm, prejudice and vilification of this group, attempting to position the consumer/reader of Veja against the protestant sphere. The conclusion of this research, therefore, is that the exotopic position assumed by Veja with regard to its otherness, the evangelical discursive sphere, articulates axiologic aprehensions materialized in the form of intonation on the cover of the magazine that we analysed, disseminating, with the character of truth, the protestant group as integrant of mere dualities. Although the cover figures the group as an agent of change in society, this change gets the intonation by the magazine so that it seems false or, at least, incomplete, which equips the Veja readers of mistrust and, therefore, discredit to the actions of the discussed discursive sphere.