Monoglot and alienated? Brazilian students in OECD assessment

Brazilian high school students, on average, have little contact with people from other countries, are more monoglots (that is, speak only one language) and declare to have less knowledge about global issues than students from other countries measured by the OECD, the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development.

This detachment can be an additional barrier for Brazilian students to fully develop what the organization calls “global competences”, which are increasingly necessary in a more competitive world and whose challenges go beyond national borders – such as pandemics and climate change.

The OECD assessment was carried out using questionnaires applied in 2018 during the international Pisa exam, which measured the reading, science and mathematics knowledge of 600,000 15-year-old students in 79 OECD member countries, economies or partner countries (if of Brazil).

For the first time, on an experimental basis, the organization asked students how much they feel they have knowledge (and the initiative to act) about global problems, their contact with immigrants and other cultures, their ability to speak other languages ​​and their learning from different perspectives. their own.

The material on “global competencies” was published in a report this Thursday (10/22), entitled “Are students ready to thrive in an interconnected world?”.

The report does not provide any sort of ranking of the participating countries, and analyzes of the different questions allow different conclusions about the degree of interconnectivity of students from each nation.

But, according to the OECD, this is an initial initiative to measure the ability of students in the world to “1) analyze issues of local, global and cultural significance; 2) understand and take into account the views of others around the world; 3 ) engaging in open, appropriate and efficient intercultural interactions; and 4) being able to act for collective well-being and sustainable development “.

For Andreas Schleicher, head of education at the OECD, “in dealing with globalization, this generation will need new skills. Whether in traditional work environments or entrepreneurs, young people will need to collaborate with people from different disciplines, cultures and value systems, from to solve complex problems and create social and economic value “.

Responses from students in Brazil

About 11 thousand students in their 15s participated in Pisa 2018 and, consequently, in the questionnaire on interconnectivity.

And they are in the group of students with less proximity to people from other countries: while in places like Albania, Germany and Greece at least 70% of students said they have contact with foreigners, this percentage was 20% to 30% in Brazil, Argentina , Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam.

In Brazil, just over a third of the students said they speak more than one language, a rate only higher than South Korea, Mexico, Colombia and Vietnam.

In comparison, more than 90% of students in Croatia, Estonia and Hong Kong said they were able to express themselves in more than one language.

According to the OECD, there is a “positive and significant” association between contact with foreigners and mastery of other languages ​​with the students’ attitude, in their “cognitive adaptability, their (perception of) self-efficiency on global topics and their interest in learning about other cultures. , his respect for people from other cultures and his ability to see from different perspectives “.

Even in Brazil, the more students were aware of other languages, the more they demonstrated awareness of relevant issues globally.

It is good to note that, unlike many countries participating in the OECD questionnaire, Brazil is a country of continental dimensions, with a single official language, and a presence of recent immigrants relatively small in size.

That said, Brazilian students had a much lower average than the OECD for “awareness of global issues”.

The organization measured this by asking students how familiar they were with topics such as global warming, international conflicts, malnutrition, causes of poverty and equality between men and women.

Students from Albania, Lithuania and Greece were the ones who declared themselves most capable of responding to these issues. Brazil, on the other hand, was in 53 ° among the 65 countries that participated in this point of the questionnaire.

As in other points of the research, the OECD found here a strong correlation between students’ socioeconomic status and their awareness of global issues: students from more affluent social classes had more knowledge about these issues than their poorest peers, both in Brazil and other countries.

“These differences in awareness related to socioeconomic status may be the result of unequal access to opportunities at school, to learn about global issues,” says the report.

The OECD also asked students’ teachers if they felt the need for professional development to teach in a second language and in a multicultural environment. Among all participating countries, teachers in Brazil were the ones who answered most “yes” to both questions.

On the other hand, more than 75% of Brazilian students studied in schools that held celebrations and festivals of other cultures, a rate well above that of 35% of OECD countries.

In all countries surveyed, the more pleasure students had in reading, the more they were aware of global issues – probably because enjoyable reading increased the chance of these students gaining more knowledge and being exposed to different sources of information.

For Schleicher, from the OECD, the school has a fundamental role in helping students to think and learn autonomously and to broaden their understanding of other cultures, traditions, ways of life and ways of thinking.

“The ability to read and understand diversity and to recognize central liberal values ​​in our societies, such as tolerance and empathy, can help respond to extremism and radicalization,” he said.

“Open and flexible attitudes will be vital for young people to coexist and interact with people from other faiths and other countries. So will the common human values ​​that unite us.”