O TERRITÓRIO, RAÇA E ESCOLA: A RESPONSABILIDADE CIVIL DO ESTADO DIANTE DA EXPOSIÇÃO DE CRIANÇAS AO RACISMO AMBIENTAL

Abstract

This article examines the overlap between territories of socio-environmental vulnerability and the low school performance of Black, mixed-race, Indigenous, Quilombola, and peripheral populations in Brazil, with special attention to the role of the State as the agent responsible for guaranteeing both the right to an ecologically balanced environment and the right to quality education. Using a legal-critical approach articulated with categories of political ecology and decolonial thought, the study investigates how the concentration of environmental risks in territories predominantly inhabited by peripheral families interferes with the material and psychosocial conditions of children's learning, configuring a form of environmental racism with direct repercussions in the educational field. The research adopts a qualitative methodology with documentary analysis and a systematic review of scientific and legal literature, articulating normative sources, judicial decisions, and national and international academic production. The results indicate that state omission in the face of the concentration of environmental risks in racialized territories constitutes a simultaneous violation of multiple fundamental rights and authorizes, under the terms of the 1988 Federal Constitution and infra-constitutional legislation, the civil liability of the State for omission. It is concluded that overcoming this situation requires not only integrated public policies but also a critical and anti-racist environmental education, capable of recognizing the territory as a pedagogical space and a place of legal protection.