Miriti toy: the pedagogical strength of the local culture in curriculum

The text explains the connection between culture and education, and is it purpose of this paper is to discuss the pedagogical strength of the local culture in curriculum. To this end, we took as a reference the results of research carried out in Abaetetuba, a typical city of the Para state, which created the miriti toy, an artifact that constituted a bicentennial tradition and is intangible cultural heritage too. The data were generated for ten months of research, through the postmodern ethnography, in two of the famous artifact production studios. We realize that despite the centrality of miriti toy for the economy and local culture, it has no place in municipal schools, for two reasons: due the theme omission in curriculum and by the inexistence of a policy of cultural formation of teachers. The contribution of this study is to explore the potential of local culture for resizing the curriculum, in order to a culturally relevant education for children and youth from elementary school.