This article presents the results of the research about how the State and Education topic were dealt with in the Brazilian academic production between 1971 and 2000. We have researched five Proceedings of Post-Graduation and National Research Associations and fifteen journals in the areas of Economy, Administration, History, Social Sciences and Education, focusing on four titles in each one of them, in considering the total production of the period. We tried to understand the perspectives of the areas. We have considered the historical context of the decades in which those works were produced, highlighting their contributions and limitations. In this article, we approach the characterization of the Brazilian State by the authors of researched works, especially concerning the three main references that appear throughout the period: the capitalist State/producer of social order; the authoritarian State/centralizer; and the inefficient State / the absent state. We seek to understand them in their historical context.
State; primary education; educational policies; academic production; historical context and education
