‘Are They Really Indians?’: indigenous representations in the classroom

ABSTRACT For the purpose of verifying the implementation of the Law 11.645/08, which indicates the obligation of teaching indigenous history and cultures in the classroom, the authors introduce the study developed on indigenous representations by students of the final grades of elementary school in municipalities with different levels of contact with the Tapuios do Carretão community, in the state of Goiás, Brazil. It was made a comparative approach, since the study of the imaginary, about native people in Brazil, points to two mismatched conceptions about the indigenous in the national consciousness, based on the proximity and the distance between the non-indigenous society and indigenous people.