Amerindios venezolanos y textos escolares: las expresiones de la discriminación antes del currículo nacional bolivariano

this paper aims at revealing the presence of discursive patterns of discriminatory treatment towards indigenous population in school textbooks published before and immediately after 1999. the sample consists of twenty (20) lessons in books published before 1999 and twenty (20) lessons in textbooks published after that year. these lessons were analyzed on the basis of the categories of participants, processes and circumstances, from halliday？s (1985, 1994) systemic functional grammar. these results were then contrasted with van dijk？s (2004) categories for racist discourse in school textbooks. it can be concluded that both groups of texts, almost with no variation, keep discriminatory practice against indigenous population as evidenced in their static character, shown by means of little tendency to change and to physical, mental and verbal activity of this social group, which strongly contrasts with the values of the criollo venezuelan society.