TEACHING PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL: LINGUISTIC DISTRIBUTION INEQUALITIES

ABSTRACT: Proposals for the renewal of the theoretical and methodological bases of Portuguese language teaching, in Brazil, took place in the second half of the twentieth century, in response to the linguistic diversity resulting from the arrival to school of social groups that historically did not have access to formal schooling. Since then, the country’s urbanization process has been consolidated, and the distribution of elementary education reaches almost all students in the school age. In the present context, linguistic conflicts in school are no longer supported by variables associated with the differences between rural and urban, or in a dichotomic opposition of oral culture to literate culture. In this work, based on the most recent studies about the linguistic distribution in Brazil, conceptions of Portuguese language teaching are revisited, observing the ruptures, dispersions, setbacks and inequalities that have been reproduced historically in this country.