BILINGUALISM, COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT, AND EDUCATIONAL DUALISM: THE REPRODUCTION OF INEQUALITIES BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOL SYSTEMS IN BRAZIL
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56238/revgeov17n1-021Keywords:
Bilingualism, Cognitive Development, Educational Dualism, Educational Inequality, Public PoliciesAbstract
This paper critically analyzes how bilingualism simultaneously operates as a promise of cognitive development and a mechanism for reproducing educational inequalities in the Brazilian dual system. The research investigates the relationship between the scientifically proven benefits of bilingualism and its unequal distribution between public and private schools, characterizing this inequality as a structural expression of an educational project that naturalizes social hierarchies. The methodology combines analysis of the scientific literature on bilingual cognitive development with authors such as Bialystok, Jasińska, and Dias and Muner, with Marxist sociological criticism based on Saviani and Libâneo. As an empirical procedure, a comparative study was conducted of the school reports of two second-year high school students: one precocious bilingual (Portuguese-English and Spanish) and the other monolingual, both from the public school system. The results reveal that the bilingual student performed 23% better than the monolingual student, with advantages concentrated in subjects that require cognitive flexibility, such as Physics, Chemistry, and Text Interpretation. The cognitive benefits of bilingualism, estimated at between 10% and 25% in executive functions, remain inaccessible to most public school students, becoming the exclusive cultural capital of the elites. It is concluded that bilingualism in Brazil functions as a device of social distinction that masks class privileges as individual merit. Transforming this reality requires massive public investment in quality bilingualism in early childhood education, continuous teacher training, structural conditions equivalent to those of private schools, and an ideological break with empty discourses of “inclusion.” Only through redistributive transformations will bilingualism become a universal educational right and a tool for cognitive emancipation for all Americans.
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