Ensino religioso na educação brasileira: breve análise histórica

Abstract

Religion has always been present in Brazilian history and, consequently, in education. Debates surrounding religion in education are as old as the country itself. Colonizers used religion as a means of indoctrination and imposition of their ideologies. The Federal Constitution of 1988, the Law of Directives and Bases for National Education (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional - LDB) of 1996, and the National Common Curricular Base (Base Nacional Comum Curricular - BNCC) of 2018 were important instruments for changing education in the country. This paper briefly analyzes the history of Religious Education (RE) in Brazil, from the colonial period to the present day, from a historical and political perspective. It is a bibliographic and documentary research that sought to discuss the relationship between RE and the imminent dangers of religious intolerance, as well as the issues of its provision in Brazilian schools, based on the cited documents. The work had a qualitative approach and used the deductive method to identify and analyze the meanings constructed from these texts. The results show that the history of RE has undergone many tensions over the years and that the struggles to make RE more plural and inclusive are still ongoing, with some small gains. It is concluded that the norms of the BNCC are not fully enforced and that religious intolerance continues to plague the country, requiring a focus on teacher training, openness to teacher work in specialized RE in schools, and compliance with current legislation.