Indigenous children in Brazil: what is the contribution from psychology researches?

Abstract

This work aims at discussing how indigenous children have been approached in psychology researches in Brazil. We presented the results of a bibliographical research carried out in the psychology area, comparing them with three other areas of knowledge (education, anthropology and sociology). We collected articles published in highly rated national journals. Firstly, the selection of journals was performed considering only those supported by Brazilian institutions of each area. We selected 192 journals, from which 42 are from psychology. Subsequently, eight descriptors were searched in the paper abstracts, without applying any publishing date restrictions. Considering the four areas, 6.264 papers appeared in our search, however only 36 of those papers (0,57% of the total) report researches on indigenous childhood(s)/child(children). Regarding psychology, among 2.946 papers which appeared in our search, only 4 papers (0,13% of the papers of the area) approach those children. After thoroughly reading the articles, it was observed that when such children are heard, the drawings, identity, culture, games appear as themes for psychology studies. This work demonstrates the low visibility of this generational, ethnic and racial group in the researched areas, allowing us to observe that psychology needs more and more dedicate itself to listening to these children in research contexts.