Cultural institutions in Brazil can educate a generation of young ambassadors

Brazilians studying at universities abroad have the chance to change perceptions about their country. The time has come to create pre-college programs at Brazil’s top tier cultural, health and environmental organizations. They can prepare internationally-minded Brazilian youth to tell a more complete story to the world about a country that is often misunderstood yet always surprises in the very best of ways.

I am helping Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) create a Pre-College program. It is aimed at students applying to creative fields in universities abroad. The idea is to give up to 40 youth aged 14 and higher the chance to improve their literacy in visual art through direct access to professionals at MASP and learn how to create an artistic portfolio that can be used for college admissions. The two-week program runs from July 7 to July 18, 2025 at MASP and applications close on June 13.

Brazil’s best-known art museum, MASP stands on equal footing with other great museums around the world. It houses the largest collection of European art in the Southern Hemisphere alongside a large and comprehensive collection of Brazilian artists, including self-taught artists whose work are often left out of the history of art. Adriano Pedroso, MASP’s artistic director since 2014, was the first curator ever from Latin America to lead the Venice Biennale last year. His multi-year exhibit series at MASP, Histórias, explores art from the diverse angles of communities, race, the African diaspora, and sexuality - topics that would be considered downright radical (and perhaps de-funded) in today’s United States. The museum sits prominently on São Paulo’s famous avenue, Avenida Paulista. Its building, a modern architectural masterpiece designed by Lina do Bardo, now sits aside a newly opened tower that greatly amplifyies gallery space and adds a new education space. All of the ingredients are present at MASP offer an amazing experiences such as the MASP Pre-College.

As I started to divulge this program to college counselors and families at private schools in São Paulo, one thing became clear. Not only is MASP Pre-College the museum’s first venture into the pre-college space, it is the first of its kind at any museum in Brazil. This came as a surprise because the museum sector in Brazil is well-organized. The country has excellent museums like MASP, Inhotim in Minas Gerais, the Museum of the Portuguese Language (São Paulo), the Pinocateca de São Paulo, and Rio’s Museum of the Future. There is a lot of knowledge inside of these institutions that can transformed into immersive experiences for Brazilian youth.

Why Pre-College?

Immersive pre-college programs are common in the United States and the United Kingdom. Colleges and universities offer them to give a taste of campus life to young people, to develop their admission pool and to offer immersion in academic disciplines with great professors. The programs also develop additional revenue. Even the New York Times, through its School of the New York Times, entered the market in 2015, creatively leveraging of the expertise of the newspaper’s journalists into hands-on courses for kids from around the world.

In the area of the visual and performing arts, great pre-college summer programs exist at The Juilliard School (in partnership with Nord Anglia Education), the Guggenheim Museum, The Courtauld (London), Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, to name a few, and now MASP. These programs commonly offer specialized immersion experiences with great educators and offer certificates of completion that can be used on CVs and college applications. One thing that sets MASP Pre-College apart from these examples around the world is the availability of scholarships funded by families who can afford to pay full price for the program.

Here in Brazil, pre-college programs usually refer to those that help high school students to prepare for the national high school exam (ENEM), the score of which is used to evaluate admission universities inside of the country. Outside of MASP’s new program, there are only a few institutions or companies that leverage their expertise in the education space to prepare young people specifically for college preparation. The Faculdade Sírio-Libanês offers a two-week immersion program for high school students interested in studying medicine. There are some non-immersive programs as well: Cultura Artistica, São Paulo’s prestigious concert presenter, also runs a scholarship program for young Brazilian musicians, offering foreign language instruction, private teachers and travel support for live auditions outside of Brazil. The aerospace pioneer Embraer runs two private schools in that leverage the aeronautical company’s expertise at the K-12 level in the area of science. In such a large country, there is real potential for other such pre-college programs at cultural institutions, especially those that can help prepare young people to study abroad.

Pre-College as ambassador training

I believe MASP’s Pre-College can serve another purpose in the long term: to arm young Brazilians with more stories to tell about their country as they go out into the world. Since moving to Brazil three years ago, I’ve become more attuned to the beliefs that non-Brazilians have about the country. The stereotype that always rises to the surface is that Brazil is defined by the beach, the Amazon, soccer, Carnaval and is dangerous to visit - all superficial attributes for such a large and complex place. Journalist Daniel Buarque studies the external perception of Brazil. His recent book, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power (Macmillan, 2024) and related articles, point out that, even among the diplomatic elites, Brazil remains a largely misunderstood, even “unserious”, country whose internal problems get in the way of global recognition.

Brazilians headed off for international study have the chance to play a role in telling a more complete story about Brazil to their friendships and networks. In 2023, nearly 90,000 Brazilians studied in universities and English language programs outside of Brazil, according to surveys by UNESCO. While small compared to other large nations, this number of students is sufficient for Brazilians to engage with all levels of foreign societies and break cultural biases.

As I spoke about MASP Pre-College at schools last month, I was really impressed by the curiosity and massive potential of the students I met. This got me to thinking that this is a generation teethed on storytelling in social media and marketing. These internationally-minded young Brazilians have the best chance to tell deeper stories about their country than ever. Why shouldn’t the complex stories of visual art, literature, gastronomy, music, medicine, the environment, aerospace and other fields in Brazil be part of those narratives? The old narratives about culture perpetuated by the global north don’t need to be followed any more. When MASP concludes Pre-College on July 17, we will be able to share more about how this program might deepen cultural literacy at an important turning point in young people’s lives.

Christopher Mossey PhD

São Paulo

June 11, 2025