ABSTRACT:
This article analyzes how illiteracy, school, education and experience were treated in songs composed by Brazilian samba artists who called themselves malandros (astute individuals capable of circumventing rules and situations that might force them into submission). Dialoging with English social history, particularly with E. P. Thompson’s work, the article considers this songbook a historical source of the thoughts and feelings of the popular groups about school and education, especially between the 1930s and 1950s, when these sambas became popular through the radio. It concludes that, although these compositions addressed singular situations or subjects, they were sound exercises of social criticism and political education, thanks to the constant presence of certain topics: denunciation of educational and school inequalities and of prejudice against the illiterate, conflict between literate and popular culture and, finally, an anti-intellectualist stance that disdained school knowledge, seen as useless in the face of the urgencies of everyday life.
Keywords:
History of Education; Samba; Broadcasting; Popular Culture; Brazilian Popular Music