“I speak Portuguese, you speak Brazilian”: categorisation processes operated by teachers from the perspective of Brazilian students in Portugal

Authors

  • Renata Carone Iscte — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte), Lisboa, Portugal
  • Sofia Gaspar Iscte — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte), Lisboa, Portugal
  • Ana Raquel Matias Iscte — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte), Lisboa, Portugal
  • Gabriela Spanghero Lotta Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundação Getulio Vargas, São Paulo, Brasil

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7458/SPP202510734509

Keywords:

street-level bureaucrats, teachers, categorisation, pluricentric Portuguese language, students of Brazilian immigrant origin

Abstract

We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with young students of Brazilian origin in the Lisbon metropolitan area, and analysed how these students interpret the categorisations made by their teachers regarding Brazilian Portuguese (different from Portuguese in Portugal, the language of their schooling). The aim of this article is to contribute to a better understanding of the use of categorisations in street-level bureaucracy literature from the users’ point of view, recognising the language issue as an element that activates stereotypes and constructs social categories.

Published

2025-03-06

Issue

Section

Artigos