THE EQUALITARIAN SCHOOL: A DREAM OR A FALLACY?

Abstract

Schools in Brazil, in support of liberal equalitariam principIes, have frequent/y proclaimed that every
citizen should be given equal educational opportunities to get access to public education. Accordingly, the proper use of these opportunities would depend upon each person unique merits, capacities, motivation and achievement .This study aims at discussing the school egualitarian discourse byanalysing findings and conclusions obtainned by researchers in the field of sociology of education. largue, that educational inequalities and recent education democratization policies for fundamental schooling in Brazil should be analysed by establishing a distinction between the
concepts of educational deficits and that of educational differences. By analysing repetitions along the schooling process, inequalities of education and differention founded within the schools are
explainned by : a) school failure in dealing with educational problems brought about by social and
cultural minorities, b) by processes of social exclusion within brazilian society. largue that, schools by itself, lack the power and knowledge to reduce educational inequalities found among students from different social and cultural background. Educational policies recently enforced by substituing traditional grading system by a non-retention pedagogy seems to be aggravating the problem.