Education and Research - 10 years and Journal of the school of education - 35 years

Education and Research — 10 years and Journal of the school of education — 35 years

The Journal of the School of Education of the University of Sao Paulo, currently called Education and Research, was created in 1975 and now it achieves 35 years of existence, just 10 years after assuming a new configuration. Its history is closely linked to that of the School of Education of the University of Sao Paulo (FE/USP) itself, which celebrated 40 years in 2009.

The birth of FE/USP is indeed previous to its official creation in 1969. Its very first beginning may be claimed to be 1933, when the Education Institute was created as part of the Republic Square Normal School, later on called Caetano de Campos. One year later, the Education Institute became part of the School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters of the University of Sao Paulo (FFCL/USP). As most of its members were former teachers of the Normal School and some of them became university teachers with no higher education at all, there was a discomfortable situation; these teachers were nicknamed “normalists”. The incorporation of professors to the Education Department really established in 1959. Then Florestan Fernandes, Fernando Azevedo, Almeida Júnior, Carlos Mascaro, João Villa Lobos, Laerte Ramos de Carvalho, Roque Spencer Maciel de Barros, Wilson Cantoni, Moisés Brejon, Maria José G. Werebe, and Amélia Domingues de Castro, along with Luiz Carranca, Anísio Teixeira, Jayme Abreu, Lourenço Filho, Raul Bittencourt, Carneiro Leão, and Abgar Renault, among others, issued the Manifest of Educators, wrote by Prof. Fernando de Azevedo and published in July 1st that year. In that occasion, USP lead, in a pioneering manner, a great movement in defense the Public School. Some participants of this event, members of the Education Department of FFCL/USP, all of them deeply concerned with the issue of the Public School system, founded FE/USP ten years after.

This belief in the transforming powers of Public School found an appropriate historical moment. The developmental policy in the late 1950s, which provided high levels of employment in urban areas, made the project of social democratization through education seemed to be, at last, closing in. The school, and especially the good Public School, was a fundamental part of the politico-cultural agitation. The new generations of teachers graduated from USP were willing to get out of the limited domain of academic life to make a difference on the history of the city and the country. Sao Paulo City offered a likely scenario in the 1950s, since it was turning into a cultural and economic pole. The creation of the Museum of Modern Art and the Brazilian Comedy Theater, along with the organization of the 1st Plastic Arts Biennial were indicators of the panorama announcing the cultural vortex coming in the 1960s.

The educational discussion did not escape the intense debating process on the ways the Brazilian society should follow and the role of education and university. Since the Manifest of the Pioneers of New School, there were denounces against a dual educative system, which reserved the secondary and higher education for rich people and the basic education for the poor ones. The discussions were carried out in parallel to the elaboration of the Law of National Education Guidelines and Bases in 1961 and the approval of the legislation that, in Sao Paulo State, aimed to effectively grant access to all citizens to the Public School system; they gathered professors and researchers from different political and educational positions to think through educational issues.

In the 1950s, the so called “golden years of the Brazilian education”, a web of educators, sociologists, and anthropologists was lead by Anísio Teixeira; all its members were engaged in the creation of an institutional apparatus aimed to investigate the Brazilian social reality. The purpose was to obtain scientific means for the formulation of public policies for education. It was a prolific period and its repercussion can observed nowadays: much of the current educative legislation is a reflex of these initiatives and the research on Human Sciences in Brazil still explores themes then firstly explored¹. The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes), previously called “Campaign for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel”, was created in that decade². The Brazilian Center for Educational Research (CBPE), then referred to as “the greatest organ for research and studies of the National Institute of Educational Studies and Researches (Inep)”, was created on December 1955 and, not long after, its regional subsidiaries, the CRPEs, were created in Sao Paulo, Recife, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre.

The first of these centers, in Sao Paulo, consisted in, according to Fernando de Azevedo, “another trying — the greatest one — to promote the transition from an empirical educational policy to a scientific, realistic, and rational policy”³. The last but two number of Education and Social Sciences, of 1962, and the first number of the Bulletin of the Brazilian Center for Educational Researches, dedicated to its history, provide a source for understanding the fundamental role of this center to the development of researches in Education and Human Sciences registering of investigations then carried on — there we find, among many others, the well-known studies “The process of industrialization in Sao Paulo”, by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Otavio Ianni, and “The integration of the Negro in the society of classes”, by Florestan Fernandes.

Being at the same time the director of Sao Paulo’s CRPE and the Chief of the Education Department of FFCL/USP, Laerte Ramos de Carvalho asked the Education Department and the Pedagogy course to be moved to the newly open building of Sao Paulo’s CRPE, in the old Butantan Farm, then turned into the University City. Using the same building and being under the same direction the Education Department and Sao Paulo’s CRPE became closely connected, also because of the active collaboration of professors from the Department in the journals of CBPE and Sao Paulo’s CRPE. Then, CBPE edited the journal Education and Social Sciences, and Sao Paulo’s CRPE edited the journal Research and Planning, along with the monographic series called Studies and Documents.

The military administrations which came after the 1964 Brazilian coup d’état didn’t allow the survival of the CRPEs. The administrative reform of the Brazilian Education Ministry (MEC), through the Decree nr. 66.967/1970, annexed Inep to the General Secretary of MEC, changing its aims. CBPE was terminated in 1970, leading to a progressive disarticulation of the CRPEs.

At the same time, trying to face the radicalism of movements defending a comprehensive university reform, the military administrations, especially after the Institutional Act nr. 5, reorganized the educational area in Brazil, aiming to adequate it to the model of economic development based on the Doctrine of National Security. As a consequence, between 1966 and 1969 they created a new university model with the purpose of aggregating an administrative rationale to the university. This administrative rationale increased, in the bosom of the university itself, the control by the central organs over the academic life, and, externally, the control over the university by organs of the federal administration. In order to maximize this control, the old FFCL/USP was dismembered. Through the University Reform then enforced (Law nr. 5.540/1968) and combined to the elaboration of the new Statutes of the University of Sao Paulo, on December 16, 1969 the FE/USP was created; its activities effectively began on January 1st 1970. As we observed here in Sao Paulo, Schools of Education were created in many places of the country, playing the dual role of forming masters and doctors in Education and qualified personnel for the professorship, school administration, and school supervision, along with educational orientation.

The University Reform which resulted in the foundation of FE/USP aimed to give its curriculum a technical feature, separating the demands of basic education from the university demands as a whole. In its turn, the rapid expansion of private higher education and the full stop brought to the growth of public universities aimed to disarticulate the connection between the formation of researchers and the formation of teachers.

However, the purposes of military administrations were not fully accomplished. Officially terminated in 1976, the estate of Sao Paulo’s CRPE was incorporated to FE/USP; and many of its members were hired as professors at FE/USP⁴. The journal Research and Planning, edited by the terminated Sao Paulo’s CRPE became the founding nucleus of the Journal of the School of Education of USP; the monographical series Studies and Documents began to be edited by FE/USP from then until now.

Despite the termination of Inep, reduced to the studies and research financing agency, this moment of political emptiness, however, is contemporary to the expansion of post-graduate courses in the 1970s — the new locus of educational research production. The number of research projects increased — favoring the creation of new sources, and the finding of new objects and perspectives, which stimulated an essential process of facing theoretical and methodological issues and lead to a renewal in the scientific interpretation of the Brazilian education. One may consider as an inflection point of this movement the institutionalization of researching areas in the post-graduate programs and, particularly, the creation of research groups in the National Association of Post-Graduation and Research in Education (Anped), a triggering institute for critical assessment and self-renewal of academic research in Education.

The Post-Graduate Program in Education of FE/USP, created in 1971, soon assumed a leading position in Brazil; its role is developing researches and forming researchers on Education, approaching themes related to the various levels and modalities of educative systems and considering the multiple spaces and perspectives in which Education can be observed and may be studied. As one of the first programs forming professors-researchers in the doctoral level, it became the reference for many others throughout the country.

Even during the dark years, a hard persistence kept alive the spirit which inspired the fight for the democratization of education. Despite the obstacles and struggles for power, due to the microscopical action exercised in innumerous classes, research groups, seminars, and events, it was possible to nurture the critical spirit, the struggle for a qualified public education, and an effective participation in the reforms which made real the universal access of the population to basic education.

Soon after the Brazilian political redemocratization, FE/USP provided fundamental personnel to the making of public policies which, through its mistakes and successes, has tried to make real the dream of its pioneers. Nowadays, the great challenge of FE/USP is recalling the issue of teaching democracy considering the current status of the Brazilian society, working in the many settings its community is present with the aim of increasing the access of all citizens to a qualified public school.

Among the conquests of FE/USP we find the Journal of the School of Education, which was created five years after its birth. In the beginning, the journal was regarded as an “organ dedicated to the publishing of studies and investigations produced in this university institute”, according to Professor José Querino Ribeiro in his Presentation to the first volume (p. 7). Then it was, this way, a publication mainly dedicated to present the scientific production of the FE/USP professors — this tendency survived for many years.

Analyzing the original articles published in any volume of the journal allow us to realize that from 1996 it started an inflection, since it publishes an increasing number of collaborations by authors who are not members of FE/USP itself, being a significant part of them foreign ones. Since the advent of this tendency, the Journal of the School of Education remarked its wide perspective through the publication of scientific works in the area of Education as a whole, with no constraints regarding themes or institutional affiliation of the authors, reflecting the leading role of FE/USP in the Brazilian educational research context.

In 1999, the Commission of Publications of FE/USP, which is in charge of publishing the journal, analyzed its history and the difficulties mainly related to the funding to keep the journal’s half-year periodicity. This commission presented a project to turn the journal into a more modern one, having in mind the current level of scientific publications; moreover, it aimed to provide a better divulgation of knowledge in Education and also an increase in the contact between national and international experts in Education.

The main aim was to turn the journal into an indispensable source for researchers and, at the same time, to fulfill all the requirements both of the financing agencies and the indexers regarding the evaluation of scientific publications. Assessed by the Congregation of the School of Education, the project was approved, and the journal began to be called Education and Research — Journal of the School of Education. Keeping its half-year periodicity, the editorial level aimed is a high one: around 75% of each volume must be dedicated to the publication of original scientific articles, approaching any theme related to Education, constituting an effective contribution to the advance in the scientific knowledge in the area. The articles submitted for publication began to be peer-reviewed; they may be empirical and/or theoretical research results, critical reviews on thematic and/or methodological issues concerning the educational research literature; critical reflections, or evaluations on pedagogical experiences.

From then on, the Editorial Commission has organized in systematic manner dossiers on controversial research and practical themes related to Education, inviting researchers concerned with various approaches to present their views on the issue. Aiming to stimulate an open and systematic debate on the scientific production in the area of Education, the journal has also published translations of foreign articles already published abroad and critical reviews of relevant works.

The section called “In focus”, organized since 2006, intents to offer the reader with multiple or distinguished approaches on a theme related to the educational field. Any section “In focus” is constituted by a body of articles (usually from 3 to 6) submitted to the assessment of external evaluators, in a similar way to the other kinds of article. They are also submitted to the appreciation of an expert consultant in the field concerned, nominated by the editorial commission, which issues observations on the consistence and pertinence of this section. It may be complemented with a translated text, not necessarily a newly published one, which is closely related to the theme concerned.

The distribution of the journal is mainly carried out through donations and interchanges with national and international libraries. An effective means of evaluating the journal’s reach is the number of articles submitted to evaluation, around 150 every year. It is important to emphasize that the integration of the journal Education and Research to the program SciELO helped in a special manner to divulge it. As it is well known, this program was created in 1997 through a partnership between the Foundation for the Support of Research of the State of Sao Paulo (Fapesp) and the Virtual Library on Health (Bireme). It is possible to say SciELO plays a similar role to ISI, as it indexes the best Brazilian journals, selected according to quality criteria. Its most significant contribution, however, is providing articles in full text version freely available on-line, allowing them to be read by a bigger public.

Through the years the journal Education and Research has been supported by CNPq/Capes, as well as SIBI-USP, along with the consistent participation of subscriptions. The commitment of the School of Education and the School of Education Foundation to support, in adverse conditions, the regular issuing of the journal Education and Research is also very important, since it guarantees the accreditation by the national and international agencies in charge of evaluating scientific publications.

Along with the financing support, the journal is carried on through the special dedication of FE/USP professors, who spend a significant part of their time planning, organizing, and producing the volumes. For doing this, they lean on the work of collaborators concerned with the academic aims of the FE/USP.

In this presentation to a special volume which marks the 35th anniversary of the Journal of the School of Education and the 10th anniversary of this new configuration of the journal, currently called Education and Research — Journal of the School of Education, and, moreover, the 40th anniversary of FE/USP itself, the current administration of FE/USP acknowledges the work of all members of all the editorial commissions which lead the journal Education and Research to achieve the high level it presents nowadays.

Sonia Penin (Dean of FE/USP)

Maria Cecilia Cortez (Vice-Dean of FE/USP).

¹

CORREA, Mariza, A Revolução das normalistas, in:

Cadernos de Pesquisa, Fundação Carlos Chagas, nr. 66, August 1988, p. 20.

²

In 1951, accepting a nomination by the Minister of Education and Health, Anísio became director of Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), a place he occupied until he joined Inep, one year later. Anísio was secretary general in Capes until 1964.

³

AZEVEDO Fernando de,

A cultura brasileira, São Paulo, Melhoramentos, 1956, p. 8.

⁴

BEISIEGEL, Celso de Rui. Origens das orientações da pesquisa educacional na Faculdade de Educação da USP.

Educação e Pesquisa, vol. 29, n. 2, 2003, p. 357-364. Available at: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1517-97022003000200012&lng=en&nrm=iso. Accessed on: April 14, 2010.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 June 2010
• Date of issue
  Apr 2010