composition of Brazil’s population. According to estimates, the 1991 census reported that nearly half of the 147 million population was either ‘pardo’ or ‘preto’. This large proportion of Afro-Brazilians (pardos — were not necessarily blacks but could be referred to the Mulattos and pretos) was the result of the approximately 3.6 million Africans that were brought to the Portuguese colony during the three and a half centuries of the slave trade.8
The racial terminology of the census is a defined system of skin color and ethnic identity: branco (white), pardo, preto (blacks), amarelo (yellow), and indigena (indigenous). The color terminology used by the Brazilian census leaves no doubt that the categories reflect social definitions of skin color rather than biological definitions of race. There is controversy regarding the validity of the census bureau’s color classification scheme. The indigenous category was not used in the 1980 census. Brazil, as a member of the UN, has repeatedly stated that it wanted to formally achieve the Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary Education (UPE) by 2015. Fundamental education in Brazil is divided in two stages, Ensino Fundamental I (years 1–5) and Ensino Fundamental II (years 6–9). Enrolment rates are high, and Brazil seems to be speedily catching up with the average for OECD countries (OECD 2008). Many children are enrolled in pre-primary school facilities, including day-care facilities. This increased in 2007 to 70% of the 4–5-year-olds, of which 97.2% were girls (Klaveren et al., 2009).
The net enrolment in primary education in 2000–2007 of children aged 5-to-14 was 94% overall, with 95% for girls, bringing girls to boys parity to 102% (WHO, 200920). For the last few years, a gender division of secondary education enrolment was unavailable. Though recent statistics are lacking, dropout rates of girls from public schools seem considerable. The increasing adolescent fertility rates are high, especially among the poorest sectors. One of the most cited negative consequences is low school attendance. It has been argued that the Brazilian educational system has no special programs for young women who become pregnant; therefore, if a pregnant student chooses not to abort, the most probable outcome is that she will quit, this likelihood being higher among the poorer classes.
In 2000, the total enrolment rates of girls in school varied from over 95% of the population between ages 10 and 14 to nearly 50% of the 18–19-year-olds. By contrast, the enrolment rate of young mothers was 18–22 % in all age groups. Controlled by other factors, a childless girl was eight times more likely to be enrolled at school than a young mother with at least one child (Klaveren et al., 2009). The findings of Cardoso and Verner (2006) confirm that early parenthood has a strong impact driving teenagers out of school; they stress that extreme poverty is also lowering school attendance and that reducing the costs of school, such as transportation, could improve the record of school attendance.
In addition, students must pass the vestibular, a public open entrance examination; competition is fierce for places in public universities, since education in these universities is totally free of charge. Female participation in regular tertiary education continued to exceed male participation by far. In 2007, 68% of all students enrolled in tertiary education were women, bringing the women to men parity in tertiary-level enrolment to 206% (Klaveren et al., 2009, n. 24). In the population aged 20–29, in 2006, 21% were still being educated. Among the population aged 30 and over, relatively many were — either full time or part time — enrolled in public and private institutions. This called for a serious introspection and suitable action on the part of the federal government in Brazil.
Despite the enormous reforms made in the education sector, women continue to remain marginalized and discriminated in Brazil, especially those who are of Afro-descent or indigenous. The next section focuses on female education, discrimination, and the visible success of the social reform programs such as the PBF in approaching multiple issues of gender, education, income, and equity.
Female Education in Brazil: A Synoptic Overview
The Brazilian colonial economy, founded on large rural properties and slave labor, paid little attention to formal education for men and none whatsoever for women. Isolation, social stratification, and patriarchal family relations favored a power structure based on the limitless authority of landowners. According to Ribeiro (2000), the Iberian cultural tradition, transposed from Portugal to its Brazilian colony, considered women as inferior beings who had no need to learn to read and write. The educational work of the Jesuits significantly contributed to strengthening male predominance; its priests had a liking for dogmatic forms of thinking and preached the maximum authority of Church and state (Heime, 1975).
With the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in Brazil and Independence in 1822, Brazilian society began to have a more complex structure. International immigration and economic diversification increased the demand for education, which started being seen as an instrument for rising socially through the intermediary social strata (Beltrao and Diniz Alves, 2009). In this new context, the country’s leaders voiced their concern with female education for the very first time. The Empire’s first legislators established that primary school education should be the responsibility of the state and open to girls, who were primarily schooled by female teachers. But due to a lack of qualified female teachers and lack of interest in the parents, education did not reach a significant percentage of female students (UNICEF, 1982).
In the first part of the 19th century, the first institutions aimed at educating women began to appear, although in a dual teaching picture, with clear gender specializations. Generally speaking, primary education, with its strong moral and social content aimed at strengthening the role of the woman as wife and mother, was meant only for females. Female high school education was largely restricted to teacher training, or in other words, preparing female teachers for the primary school courses. Women were still excluded from higher levels of education during the 19th century. The first school was set up in Niterói, in 1835, followed by another in Bahia, in 1836. Until the final years of the empire, normal schools were few in number and almost insignificant in terms of student enrolment (Hahner, 1981).
If females found it difficult to have access to elementary education, the situation was more dramatic when it came to higher education, which was completely and unmitigatedly male dominated. Women were excluded from the first courses in medicine, engineering, and law that sprang up in the country. The imperial decree that gave women the right to enroll in a university course dates back to 1881. However, it was difficult to overcome these barriers because high school studies were essentially male-oriented, in addition to being expensive, and normal courses did not qualify women for entry to universities. It is important to note that during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century female exclusion from high school courses made it unfeasible for women to enter university. So, duality and gender segmentation were present in the Brazilian educational system since the beginning, with women having lower literacy rates and restricted access to higher levels of education (Romanelli, 2001).
The Brazilian Constitution of 1891 sanctioned the decentralization of education into a dualist scheme: the federal government was responsible for creating and controlling higher and secondary school educational institutions and the states were responsible for setting up schools and monitoring and controlling elementary education, as well as high-school-level professional education. It included normal schools for girls and technical schools for boys (Beltrao and Diniz Alves, 2009, n. 34). While the educational system expanded quantitatively at this time, there was little by way of qualitative change.
The literacy rate of the Brazilian population grew during the Old Republic (1889–1930), despite the continuing high levels of illiteracy. Educational exclusion was obviously always greater for Afro-Brazilians (Beltrão and Novellino, 2002). The enrolment rates of Brazilian women in secondary and higher education increased at the beginning of the 20th century, but by much less so than those of men. For instance, between 1907 and 1912 in the Federal District, female presence in high school courses corresponded to less than a quarter of all students and in university courses it did not reach 1.5% (see Table 1). It is worth remembering that Rio de Janeiro had one of the best rates of education in the country (Beltrao and Diniz Alves, 2009, n. 34).
Table