The present study aims to discuss the origins, the construction and the development of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education (IESAE/FGV), between 1971 and 1990. It particularly focuses on the extinction of that Institute, after not only having been in action for around twenty years, but also having received the concept A in successive evaluation exercises by CAPES, as well as having been classified as one of the best Master courses by both that agency and CNPQ. It discusses the authoritarian position of the directors of the FGV concerning the extinction of the IESAE, as well as the reaction of several actors and representative entities of the civil society, such as teachers, students, politicians, intellectuals and others, against that action taken by the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). It concludes by emphasising the crucial role of the IESAE experience, which represented a hallmark in the process of integration of thought and action in the study and research of our educational reality, contributing both to diagnose and to help solve its problems.
IESAE/FGV; Master in education; Teaching and research; Extinction