Language and the Many Histories of Brazilian Inequality

  • Brodwyn Fischer Northwestern University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21471/jls.v9i0.248
Keywords: Language, Ideology, Inequality, Race, Politics

Abstract

There are numerous historical critiques of elitist educational policies in Brazil, as well as studies of the racial and gender dynamics of education, and scholars have routinely lamented the historical lack of access to schooling among the Brazilian poor. But surprisingly few historians have taken on language and education as durable categories of inequality—created, recognized, legitimized, and acted upon over many generations, constitutive elements in Brazil’s constellation of social difference. This is especially remarkable given the rich and repeated emphasis on language, literacy, and education that characterized debates about Brazilian inequality in the century after independence.

Author Biography

Brodwyn Fischer, Northwestern University

Brodwyn Fischer is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. She is the author of A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth Century Rio de Janeiro (2008) and has published on issues of race, criminal justice, and urban inequality. She is currently working on a book about the uses and politics of social and racial inequality in Brazil from the late 19th to the mid
20th century.

Published
2011-10-03
Issue
Vol 9 (2011): ellipsis
Section
Review Essays

Copyright (c) 2018 Brodwyn Fischer

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