Social Integration of Migrants and Refugees Through Education: An Analysis of the Collective Subject Discourse of Teachers from the Abraço Cultural Association

This article analyzes the social integration processes of migrants and refugees in Brazil based on the experience of teachers at the Associação Abraço Cultural, an educational institution that exclusively employs teachers from the Global South. Anchored in semi-structured interviews with six teachers and the methodology of the Collective Subject Discourse, the study investigates how migrant teaching acts as a practice of cultural mediation, symbolic recognition, and identity reconstruction in contexts marked by structural inequalities. The results indicate that teaching transcends the function of occupational insertion, constituting itself as space for social legitimation, expansion of social networks, and production of belonging. It is argued that the pedagogical valorization of cultures of origin converts cultural differences into symbolic capital, challenging colonial hierarchies of knowledge, without replacing the need for structuring public policies. It concludes that intercultural education can operate as a partial device for social integration, mediated by disputes over recognition and power.

Keywords:
intercultural education; migration; social recognition; integration; Discourse of the Collective Subject