Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Dialogues: Public History and Historical Reparation in Basic Education

This article discusses the relationship between public history and history education in basic schooling, positing that paths involving interculturality and interdisciplinarity can contribute to historical redress. The didactic intervention presented here is the result of ongoing academic research and a collaborative effort involving diverse professionals, various segments of the school community, and activists who view public history as a commitment to social justice. According to Michael Frisch (1990), people need not merely be consumers of historiographical narratives; they can be participants in them through a process in which the historian shares authority with ordinary people (CARVALHO, 2017). In this context, the article aims to reflect on the implementation of Law 10.639/2003, which mandated the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture in Brazilian basic education. Consequently, public schools must establish mechanisms to foster ongoing anti-racist education rooted in horizontal dialogue among historically marginalized subjects—represented within the school setting by the students themselves. For Catherine Walsh (2007), interculturality is a process of inter-cultural relations based on dialogue, yet it also involves conflict and negotiation in the face of historical inequalities. Thus, the author proposes "critical interculturality," which values the knowledge systems of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples while challenging dominant Eurocentric knowledge. Against this backdrop, the present work introduces the concept of the "intercultural pill," drawing on the experience of Rio de Janeiro's suburbs and their predominantly Black student body as an example of resistance within the school—an institution historically characterized by racism and hierarchy. The Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Center for Belonging and Identity, established in 2025 at the José Emygdio de Oliveira Municipal School in Rio de Janeiro's North Zone, embodies this "intercultural pill." This initiative involves a type of working group aimed at discussing anti-racism and establishing a permanent agenda to address education regarding ethnic-racial relations within the school environment, while advocating for the creation and institutionalization of such spaces in Brazilian schools—respecting the specificities of each location. It represents a necessary movement to avoid hasty approaches in the implementation of reparative legislation.