O ensino de genética como instrumento de combate à discriminação racial

Abstract

In Brazil despite the myth of the existence of racial democracy, the several social indicators still point to a significant difference between the living conditions of black and white populations; in addition social relations are often marked by prejudice and racist behavior that is adopted and accepted daily. In view of the need to guarantee equality among all Brazilian citizens, laws were created both to criminalize discrimination and to insert the preventive dimension through education - Laws 7716/1989 and 9394/1996, respectively. Considering that the issue of racial discrimination is still persistent and evaluating the legislation in force, a school intervention is needed, in order to provide students with a critical education focused on respect and value of the diversity and dignity of all humans. In particular, biology´s concepts of classification and genetic diversity, can be a valuable tool to help students of basic education actively to reformulate their conceptions about the race’s definition, enabling them to perceive the inadequacy of the term for populations human beings. The aim of this study is to present a new didactic sequence to approach some curricular contents related to the subject of genetics in high school, such as polygenic inheritance (with emphasis on the inheritance of skin color in humans), human genetics and genomic identity of species . In this work, educational and investigative actions marked by interaction relations which carried out to address the theme of racism, using biological knowledge to investigate and deconstruct the concept of race existence in humans. Analyzing the data from elements such as class diary, test performance, work presentations and comparative data from the application of questionnaires before and at the end of the study, we concluded that the set of activities proposed improved considerably the students' understanding of the concepts addressed and the non-existence of biological races in humans.