This study establishes an articulation between school and non-school educational processes and the construction of Negro identity. It discusses the representations and similar, different and complementary conceptions about the Negro body and afro hair, constructed within and without the school environment, based on the memories of adolescent and young Negros interviewed during an ethnographic research on body and hair as identity icons in ethnic hairdressing salons. The intention is to understand the social significance of hair and body and the meanings attributed to them by the school and by the Negro subjects interviewed. The understanding of this context reveals that the body as a support for the construction of identity has not been a theme given prominence in studies on racial relations and education.
education; negro identity; body