The development of the teaching of Brazilian Portuguese as a community language in a number of countries, including England, is a recent phenomenon. This article sets out to discuss historical as well as current political and social issues related to this development, including issues about the terminologies adopted in different countries to refer to the languages migrants bring with them. The discussions are placed against the background of Brazilian international migration which only became significant in the second half of the 1980s. A review of the first publications on the Brazilian community schools in England shows the key role these schools have in the identity development of their pupils. Consequently, a continuous growth in the number of these schools has been witnessed since 1997. This growth is documented in this article, as are the challenges these schools face in running their services and activities. The development of networks locally, nationally and internationally is acknowledged as a creative way adopted by the schools to work together towards overcoming these challenges. Nevertheless, a call is made for other nodes to be included in these networks: mainstream schools and schools maintained by other migrant groups.
Souza, A
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\School of Education
Year of publication: 2016Date of RADAR deposit: 2016-09-06