Learning equity in contexts of social vulnerability: challenges for teacher education

Abstract

This article discusses how social vulnerability, learning equity, and teacher education intersect in the production of educational inequalities in Brazil. Grounded mainly in Castel, Fraser, and Giroux, it argues that expanding access to schooling has not resolved disparities in the real conditions for learning, particularly for students in situations of social vulnerability, whose weakened labor ties and social recognition shape their school trajectories. Data from INEP, IBGE, and OECD highlight persistent gaps between social groups and indicate that educational policies must adopt equity as a central guiding principle. Teacher education is argued to require a critical, political, and reflective foundation, capable of preparing teachers as transformative intellectuals, attentive to their students’ concrete conditions. The study highlights that teachers’ own condition can be read through Castel’s concept of a “zone of vulnerability,” extending a framework usually applied to students to examine the proletarianization of teaching work. The article concludes that promoting learning equity requires revising school practices and strengthening teacher education processes that value teachers as political agents of education. Although centered on the Brazilian context, the discussion resonates with similar challenges faced by other Latin American countries.