This article presents a depiction of the discourses of pedagogy and psychology on the problems related to school performance. It focuses on the period when the public school system was being structured and when the principles of the New School spread. The article analyses texts published in the Revista de Educação, Journal of Education also calledEducation and New School, and educational psychology textbooks for teacher education, published in the 1930s and 1940s. The analysis is based on texts by Michel Foucault and Dominique Maingueneau about the speech. The examination of the statements of psychology and education indicates that the improvement of school performance was related to the production of scientific knowledge about the student and to the strict control of school work, especially teaching activities.
school performance; teaching; pedagogical journals; textbooks