Racism in Brazil: Inequality in Educational Opportunities and Social Mobility

This paper presents an overview of the debate on race relations in Brazil. The main focus of this work is to examine inequality of opportunities between whites and nonwhites and how class and racial discrimination impacts outcomes for social advancement. Although many scholars, intellectuals and authors have contributed to an analysis of this debate, race relations in Brazil remains a very confounding and provocative issue. The rapid and tremendous growth that Brazil is currently experiencing has brought increased stratification between races and classes and a recurrence of the public debate on this complex issue. This paper will trace the history of this debate, the myth of racial democracy, the Afro-Brazilian militant movement and provide a brief overview of the existing quantitative research on Brazilian race relations.