EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES AND POVERTY IN THE AMAZON: HISTORICAL CONTINUITIES AND CHALLENGES OF THE NEW NATIONAL EDUCATION PLAN IN LIGHT OF PIERRE BOURDIEU

Abstract

This article analyzes educational inequalities and poverty in the Brazilian Amazon by connecting historical continuities, territorial and cultural inequalities, and the challenges of contemporary educational planning. It aims to understand how material conditions of poverty, distance, infrastructure, family labor, and unequal recognition of cultural capital affect access, persistence, and learning, and to discuss to what extent the new National Education Plan (PNE), established by Law No. 15,388/2026, provides instruments to address these inequalities. This is a qualitative, bibliographic, and documentary study based on Antônio Gonçalves Dias’s records on public schooling along the Solimões River, documents related to the 2014–2024 PNE, data from Inep and IBGE, and recent literature on Amazonian youth and riverine populations. Pierre Bourdieu is the main theoretical reference, in dialogue with Jean-Claude Passeron, especially through the concepts of cultural capital, habitus, symbolic violence, and social reproduction. The findings indicate that expanding formal access does not eliminate inequalities in persistence and learning. The article concludes that the new PNE advances by explicitly addressing regional, territorial, and socioeconomic inequalities, but its effectiveness will depend on territorially grounded policies, adequate funding, and recognition of Amazonian knowledge and ways of life.