Student enrollment in higher education is becoming increasingly diverse. Despite this increase in diversity, students from traditionally marginalized groups such as students of color or from low-income families continue to be underrepresented. A lack of cultural understanding and the presence of biases and prejudices are considered a root cause of…

This article is the result of the Final Work of the Specialization Course in Cultural Management, the result of an agreement between the Department of Culture of the State of Ceará, the Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú--UVA and Quitanda das Artes. The work analyzed indicators of cultural access and consumption among students at the Vale do…

Rituals pose a cognitive paradox: although widely used to treat problems, rituals are causally opaque (i.e., they lack a causal explanation for their effects). How is the efficacy of ritual action evaluated in the absence of causal information? To examine this question using ecologically valid content, three studies (N=162) were conducted in…

The documentary "Favela Rising" (2005) and its companion narrative, "Culture is Our Weapon" (2010), depict the AfroReggae cultural movement as a break with the past, a means of creating citizenship for Brazilian "favelas." A leitmotif of the film is struggling to end the communities' "paralysis" caused by…

Brazil's National History Museum in Rio de Janeiro is reaching out to the most marginalized young people and establishing itself as an important partner in offering them alternatives to a life of crime and addiction. The target population for its programs includes disenfranchised children and young people aged 10 to 20--those living in the…

This dissertation is a sociolinguistic study of the ideologies about language, culture and ethnicity among Japanese immigrants and descendants in Brazil (hereafter, Nikkeis) who gather at a local Japanese cultural association, searching for what it means to be "Japanese" in Brazil. This study focuses on how linguistic behaviors are…

This article describes the environmental education (EE) program developed in the neighboring community of Serra da Canastra National Park based on a research project focused on the maned wolf conservation. The article assesses three tools used to foster the community's participation in discussing local issues: (1) communal production of a book…

Much has been said about the difficulties that Latin American children of foreign Japanese descent (Nikkei) face in the Japanese school system since the implementation of Japan's new immigration law in 1990. The underlying monolingualism and cultural exclusion of the school system are often blamed for these difficulties. However, little detailed…

Creativity and the creative arts are important to the portrayal of human experiences through a myriad of forms, including visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and written expression. While these forms of creative expression vary within and across cultural groups, a unifying element embedded in creative works seems to prevail through a continuous search…

Provides a systematic analysis of the music program of a private elementary school in Brazil to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the systematic approach as applied to educational organizations. Discusses implications for both the planning of the structure of music education and for the teacher's individual planning. (CFR)

One of the units developed as part of the "Around the World" exploratory language program in South Carolina, this unit on Brazil aims to develop in students an awareness of Brazilian culture through experiential language and cultural activities. The guide has the following components: (1) a list of resources including books, special…