Normative silencing and Law No. 10,639/2003: decolonial analysis of materiality in decennial education plans (Brazil, Bahia, and Jequié)

Abstract

This article investigates the materiality of Law No. 10,639/2003 within the scope of ten-year educational planning, problematizing the tensions between anti-racist legal prescriptions and their discursive incorporation in official documents. The analysis focuses on a comparative confrontation between the National Education Plan (PNE), the State Education Plan of Bahia (PEE-BA), and the Municipal Education Plan (PME) of Jequié-BA. Grounded in the theoretical framework of decoloniality and the concept of the colonial matrix of power, the study employs Content Analysis to map the recurrence and semantic contexts of twelve fundamental descriptors of Education for Ethnic-Racial Relations (ERER). The results highlight the persistence of a hierarchy of silencing: while the PNE operates through the strategic omission of ERER descriptors such as racism and race, the Jequié-BA plan manifests a semantic hijacking of the descriptor inclusion, diluting the specificity of the racial agenda into generic humanistic categories. It concludes that the gap between the legal text and formal planning ratifies institutional racism, demanding an epistemological shift that converts educational planning into a real device for resistance and cognitive justice.