REPERTORY OF ACTIONS AND EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES: INTELLECTUALS AND PROJECTS IN DISPUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL MODERNITY (BRAZIL, 1920S)

ABSTRACT:

This text, in the field of educational history, focuses on intellectual and cultural history to understand five educational conferences held in Brazil in the 1920s - the Interstate Conference on Primary Education (Rio de Janeiro, 1921); the Congress of Primary and Normal [Teacher] Education (Paraná, 1926); the First Congress of Primary Instruction (Minas Gerais, 1927); the First State Conference of Primary Education (Santa Catarina, 1927); and the First National Education Conference, which was promoted by the Brazilian Association of Education (ABE) (Curitiba, 1927). The conferences are considered part of a repertoire shared by five intellectuals: Orestes de Oliveira Guimarães, Antonio de Sampaio Dória, Lysimaco Ferreira da Costa, Antonio de Arruda Carneiro Leão, Francisco Luís da Silva Campos, and Manoel Bergström Lourenço Filho, who are considered representatives of projects in dispute for educational modernity, highlighting the expansion, gratuity, and mandatory features of primary education. The research question is: how can we consider these conferences as part of a repertoire that mobilized intellectuals in defense and dispute of concepts and projects, in an effort to establish the meanings that would guide educational modernity in Brazil in the 1920s? The theoretical methodological approach and analyses involve the concepts of modern and modernity, repertoire, intellectuals, and representation. Reaching educational modernity in Brazil in the period required articulations and actions which, in theory, would guarantee reaching certain goals, such as the expansion of a primary compulsory free education.

Keywords:
Educational conferences; educational modernity; primary education