Schooling of social classes in various types of secondary education: aspects of Paraná in focus (1940s-1960s)Abstract
This article analyzes data concerning the expansion of secondary education in Brazil from the 1940s. The data originate from research aimed at understanding how and which fractions of the middle classes participated in the process of expanding various forms of secondary education during this period. The article presents analyses related to secondary education, focusing on the process in the state of Paraná, specifically in its capital, Curitiba, and utilizing data from the Colégio Estadual do Paraná between the 1940s and 1960s. The sources mobilized reveal a gradual diversification of the class fractions that began to attend secondary education at the institution, indicating a growing demand for schooling among different social classes.
Keywords:
secondary education; middle classes; expansion; Colégio Estadual do Paraná
Resumo
Este artigo analisa a expansão do ensino secundário no Brasil a partir da década de 1940. Os dados provêm de pesquisa que busca compreender como e quais frações das classes médias participaram do processo de expansão dos diversos ensinos secundários no período. São apresentadas análises referentes ao ensino secundário, focalizando o processo no estado do Paraná, mais especificamente na capital, Curitiba, e em dados do Colégio Estadual do Paraná, entre as décadas de 1940 e 1960. As fontes mobilizadas revelam uma paulatina diversificação das frações de classe que passaram a frequentar o ensino secundário na instituição, denotando uma crescente demanda pela escolarização por parte de diferentes classes sociais.
Palavras-chave:
ensino secundário; classes médias; expansão; Colégio Estadual do Paraná
Resumen
Este artículo analiza la expansión de la educación secundaria en Brasil a partir de la década de 1940. Los datos provienen de una investigación que busca comprender cómo y qué fracciones de las clases medias participaron en el proceso de expansión de las distintas modalidades de educación secundaria durante ese período. Se presentan análisis sobre la educación secundaria, centrados en este proceso en el estado de Paraná, más específicamente en su capital, Curitiba, y en datos del Colégio Estadual do Paraná entre las décadas de 1940 y 1960. Las fuentes analizadas revelan una diversificación paulatina de las fracciones de clase que comenzaron a cursar la educación secundaria en la institución, lo que indica una creciente demanda de escolarización por parte de diferentes clases sociales.
Palabras clave:
educación secundaria; clases medias; expansión; Colégio Estadual do Paraná
Introduction
This article aims to problematize data on the expansion of secondary education in Brazil from the 1940s onwards. The elements analyzed in this study derive from a broader ongoing research project that investigates, through records from prominent schools located in the state capitals of each region of the country's territorial division during the period, how and which segments of the middle classes participated in the expansion of secondary education between 1940 and 1971. This period concludes with the enactment of Law No. 5,692/1971, which replaced the gymnasium and secondary education systems with 1st and 2nd Grade Education.
It should be noted that the research questions mentioned were generated from the results of previous research on the implementation and regional expansion of Brazilian secondary education, which allowed for the construction of a new historiography on this level of education, from a comparative perspective, based on governmental and school documents and statistical data on the provision of secondary education in each of the states investigated1. The historiographical operation of comparison is based on what we consider "a particular version of the comparative method called comparative studies" (Silva, 2021, p. 57), which operates at the intersection of education, the history of education, and comparative social sciences (Silva, 2016, 2019).
In this historiographical operation, the comparison was carried out on four scales of comparison: a) comparative analysis between the differences in the growth of secondary education in the states where the cities are located and the general characteristics of this process in Brazil; b) comparison of states and municipalities among themselves, establishing the differences that marked the way secondary education was influenced; c) comparison between the creation and changes in secondary education in each city, in the context of its state, considering the local relations between municipality and state; d) comparison among the elements that differentiate secondary education in the cities among themselves (Silva, 2021, p. 64).
The results of the comparison revealed peculiarities that deserve to be highlighted and allow for the individualization of analyses, confirming the existence of many secondary education systems. This text presents elements from the fourth comparison scale that differentiate secondary education in cities from one another. Given the amount of data already consolidated regarding secondary education in Paraná, for the purposes of this article, analyses are presented on how the expansion process occurred in the state, in the city of Curitiba, and especially at the Colégio Estadual do Paraná (CEP), located in the capital.
The spatial and temporal scope of the analysis is anchored in specific issues developed throughout the text. The model school2, throughout the 1940s, faced problems regarding the physical space of the building it had been using. With the inauguration of a new purpose-built facility in the early 1950s, the institution significantly expanded its capacity to accommodate secondary school students. From the gradual occupation of the new building, evidence of a diversification in the student profile was found, in terms of the classes and segments of the middle classes served by the institution. In particular, with the implementation of the educational experiment called "Full-Time Classes"3 initiated in 1960, research was conducted on some aspects of the institution's educational dimension, revealing data about this diversification.
First, it is crucial to highlight that historiography records that secondary education in Brazil began after the publication of the Additional Act of 1834 (Brazil, 1834), which allowed provinces to legislate on this level of education, in addition to the existing permission to legislate on primary education. With legal backing, the provinces began to bring together the isolated classes, which prepared students for preparatory exams, in physical spaces called Lyceums, Athenaeums, and Colleges, among which the Colégio de Pedro II, founded in 1837, stood out as a model and standard for all secondary education establishments in the country.
It should be noted that, although a slow and fraught process, these initiatives spread throughout the national territory and, by 1859, all provinces had established a secondary school4. Successive reforms were enacted5 until the publication of the Francisco Campos Reform, by Decree No. 19,890, of April 18, 1931, which "Provides for the organization of secondary education" (Brazil, 1931). The first initiative for the systematization and centralization of this level of education was inserted in the policy of centralization and control of the Getúlio Vargas government, installed with the coup of 1930.
During the period analyzed in this article, it is worth noting a series of other legal provisions: a) Capanema Reform, a set of Organic Laws promulgated in successive Decree-Laws from 1942 to 1946, among which, Decree-Law No. 4,244, of April 9, 1942, the Organic Law of Secondary Education (Brazil, 1942), stands out; b) Law No. 4,024, of December 20, 1961, which “Establishes the Guidelines and Bases of National Education” (Brazil, 1961); and c) Law No. 5,692, of August 11, 1971, which “Establishes the Guidelines and Bases for primary and secondary education, and provides other measures” (Brazil, 1971).
Data obtained from previous research, with the participation of the authors of this article, lead to the conclusion that, beginning in the 1940s and linked to profound economic, political, and population changes in Brazilian society, a process of expansion of secondary education was established, accelerating significantly in the following decades, when the number of secondary schools increased from 827 in 1945 to 2,715 in 1959 (Pessanha, 2021). However, it should be noted that these numbers do not indicate democratization of access to secondary education, as less than 10% of the young population were enrolled in these schools. In this regard, Anísio Teixeira (1956, p. 68) asserts:
With the progress of the democratic spirit, which is, above all, a spirit of unification and destruction of intellectual dualisms that, if not concealing, disguise social dualisms, the people decided to enter, not the "practical" school, which was "a priori" intended for them, but the "academic" school, with all the more reason, since this is intended to be the school for the formation of the "elite," and the people see no reason why they should not also become "elite," and by such a simple process as studying only with their heads and not with their hands, and learning Latin and not how to work intelligently.6
The quote from Anísio Teixeira sheds light on the expansion of secondary education in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, which can be characterized as part of the “social mobility” in which middle-class families, mainly urban, demanded more secondary schools (Sposito, 1984) and invested in preparing their children to overcome the barrier of the entrance exam7 and become part of an “elite,” regardless of the adjective attached to it.
Furthermore, comparatively, these data indicate regional disparities. For example, the state of Minas Gerais went from 130 establishments in 1945 to 457 in 1959, and the state of São Paulo went from 230 to 687 in the same period, while the states of Amazonas and Mato Grosso rose from 3 to 4 and from 12 to 29, respectively (DESe, 1959; National Institute of Pedagogical Studies [INEP], 1945).
Data as significant as these, both in terms of the number of establishments and enrollments, by age group and gender, were published in Pessanha and Silva (2021), adding to the debates and publications on the perverse dualism of a school for the rich different from a school for the poor and, in parallel, on a possible elitist character of the modality8. This duality was even highlighted in the legislation, as it was the only one, among the modalities covered by the Organic Laws, that allowed direct access to higher education9.
It is worth remembering that the historiography on secondary education in Brazil, although less in-depth than that dealing with primary education, has been built upon the contributions of historians and educational policymakers who can be considered classics of the historiography on secondary education. In this sense, Anísio Teixeira and Jayme Abreu stand out, whose experiences in public positions in the educational field allowed them to critically analyze, from within, the functioning and problems of this level of education in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
His works10 provide fundamental information about the situation and debates surrounding the proposals of the time for education, and especially for secondary education. Some of these debates permeate the history of youth education to this day: defense of public schools, democratization of education, humanist or scientific education. Geraldo Bastos Silva (1959) occupies a similar position, bringing to light other issues that circulated during the same period, such as the importation of foreign models and the selectivity of secondary education (Gatti & Inácio Filho, 2012).
The interpretation of the data presented in this article is based both on classic authors of secondary education and on dialogue with contemporary works on the subject11. In analyzing the bibliographic production on the historiography of secondary education, Libânia Xavier (2021, p. 10) identified some tensions that characterize this history: between public and private education; between education for elites and education for all; between general and humanistic education and technical and professional training; and between innovation and pedagogical tradition.
To deepen the understanding of this process and to analyze whether changes occurred in the classes and class fractions that participated in this process of social mobility via secondary education, and in the social composition of students and graduates of these schools in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, it becomes necessary to resort to the category of social class. From this perspective, social class continues to be a challenge for the social sciences, and the vast literature that has been produced in recent years on the theory of social classes and, more specifically, on middle classes in Brazil, confirms the theoretical difficulty of dealing with this category12.
Aware of the complexity of working with the concept of social class-a category that is both analytically challenging and often burdened by ideological assumptions-we adopt the position, informed by decades of scholarship, that the profound transformations in the world of work over nearly two centuries since the concept's earliest formulations preclude reducing social class to purely economic indicators13.
In Ianni's words, it is necessary to "recover or reformulate the dialectical content of the classical concept of social class" (1978, p. 288). More recently, the same author stated that
The social sciences are being challenged to think about the globalization of the world. At the end of the 20th century, as the 21st century dawns, they are confronted with the dilemmas that arise with the globalization of things, people, and ideas. There are social, economic, political, cultural, and other processes and structures that are only beginning to be studied. Beyond the local, national, and regional, new and fundamental problems arise with the emergence of global society. Geographical and historical, cultural and civilizational boundaries seem to be changing in surprising directions and forms. Individual, group, class, collectivity, and people are placed before new horizons. Scientific thought itself is challenged to develop concepts and interpretations to account for little-known realities. The theories of globalization, which are beginning to be outlined, reveal the commitment of the social sciences to explain what is new in what is happening around the world (Ianni, 1994, p. 162).
Considering the objective of the research from which this article originated, it was assumed that, in order to grasp the very concept and movement of social classes in contemporary Brazil, it is essential to follow the historical transformations of Brazilian society and analyze the movement of social classes at the end of the 20th century.
Based on the assumption formulated by Wright (2015, p. 16), that "a person's economic prospects in life continue to depend significantly on their relationship with different types of economically valuable goods," the methodological approaches were designed not to reduce social classes to their economic function, but to capture their movement in social, historical, urbanization, and educational indicators.
In summary, the theoretical and methodological approach that underpins the research that gave rise to this article is based on the category of labor as an essential element for the analysis of society, in dialogue with Marxist and Marxist-leaning studies. From this perspective, social class is understood as a relational and historical concept, capable of grasping the separation between manual and intellectual labor as a fundamental theoretical and methodological element for the analysis of social relations in capitalism, at each historical moment of this mode of production. It is, therefore, more of a starting point for concrete analyses of reality than a key to unlock theoretical doors (Pessanha, 1994).
To analyze concrete data from reality, Wright (2015, pp. 202-203) suggests examining how people relate to “income-generating resources or means and goods of various kinds,” with the aim of identifying aspects of inequality that produce antagonisms. Sociological, economic, and historical studies indicate that schooling impacts different social classes and class fractions in distinct ways (Saes, 2009). In this sense, as a way of approaching these relationships in Brazilian history, especially between the 1940s and 1960s, data were collected on the schooling of families of students in secondary education institutions, which made it possible to analyze one of the multiple determinants of the social relations constructed at that historical moment.
Therefore, it is also worth noting the existence of debates and controversies regarding the middle classes and their fractions, with formulations that incorporate changes in reality, especially in relation to the fractions of the middle class in Brazil14. It is also important to refer to studies that analyze the relationship between schooling and middle classes, such as in Saes (2009, p. 166), for whom the expansion of places in public education, at the primary and secondary levels, “did not result in a qualitative change in the configuration of the Brazilian educational pyramid”, since there is a short trajectory for the so-called “poor,” while
Students considered "rich" (middle-middle class or upper-middle class, propertied classes) are able to complete a long educational trajectory, encompassing secondary education and higher education (and, nowadays, not only undergraduate studies but also, increasingly, postgraduate studies) (Saes, 2009, p. 166).
That being said, to examine the relationship between the movement of social classes and class fractions and the accelerated expansion of secondary education systems across the Brazilian states during the period under study, the research was conducted in one state from each region of the federation, selecting the respective state capital and one prominent secondary school within each capital as the empirical locus of analysis. The indicators of this relationship were sought and analyzed in conjunction with historical moments and include student data - affiliation, parents' occupation, residence, sex, age, entry (admission or transfer), post-school "destination" (employment, higher education, marriage); history of the state and city, including demographic, economic, social, and occupational data, the process of urbanization and schooling; history of education in the state and city focusing on post-primary education (implementation and expansion, social groups/neighborhoods served); and history of the chosen school institution.
In this work, considering the data collected and aware of its limitations, the schooling indicator was chosen to situate students in classes or class fractions. To this end, data and analyses resulting from efforts to explain how and which fractions of the middle classes participated in the expansion process of various secondary education systems are presented, focusing this process in the state of Paraná, more specifically in the capital, Curitiba, using data from the Paraná State College, starting in the 1940s.
Regarding the expansion of secondary education in Paraná (1940s-1960s)
The decision to present information about this process in the state of Paraná is justified by some of its particularities, identified in previous research. Oliveira and Chaves Junior (2021, 2023) point out that the expansion in Paraná was marked by meeting demands arising from the growth and industrialization of urban centers, agricultural development, significant migratory flows, and the occupation of the territory, with the creation of municipalities, especially in the interior of the state. Table 1 presents data in this regard, placing the significant population increase in a national and regional perspective:
Table 2 illustrates the argument that population growth, along with other factors, has impacted the demand for secondary education, as reflected in the number of enrollments over the decades analyzed:
Thus, as analyzed by Oliveira (2023), it is possible to affirm that, in the state of Paraná, the expansion of secondary education relied on the establishment of public educational policies, such as the institution of the normal and secondary school teacher career; the organization of guidelines for the competitive examinations for the provision of teacher and principal positions; the promotion of free secondary and normal education; the granting of financial aid to municipal, state, private and religious high schools; the significant creation of new state high schools; the state takeover of municipal and private high schools, among other initiatives.
Regarding the number of secondary education institutions, in that context of population growth and increased demand for this level of education, Table 3 summarizes the expansion of supply, particularly evidenced by the trend of decentralizing services:
Having presented the data concerning the state of Paraná, the analysis now moves, in line with the perspective of the scale game (Revel, 1998), from the state level to the institutional level, examining how this process of expansion unfolded at the Colégio Estadual do Paraná, located in Curitiba, the state capital.
The expansion of secondary education, in the case of the Colégio Estadual do Paraná
The choice to present the research results focusing on the Colégio Estadual do Paraná (CEP) is justified by the fact that the sources used clearly demonstrate the distinct processes of rapid expansion and the gradual diversification of the class fractions that attended secondary education.
According to historiography, the CEP (Colégio Pedro II) originated with the Liceu de Curitiba, created in 1846 and officially recognized in 1854. The Liceu “was successively founded and refounded between 1858 and 1868; 1871 and 1874; 1876 and 1877; 1883 and 1884” (Trindade, 2003, p. 81). In 1892, the institution achieved some operational stability and was renamed Ginásio Paranaense, finally obtaining, in 1900, the coveted equivalence to the Ginásio Nacional (Colégio Pedro II).
The stumbling path that marked the beginning of the institution's operation gave way, at the beginning of the 20th century, to its consolidation as a benchmark for secondary education in the state. An example of this is the construction of the institution's third headquarters, inaugurated in February 1904, which was the first building constructed specifically to house the activities of the Ginásio Paranaense. The building had "two floors with administrative rooms, a director's office, 11 classrooms, a main hall for the use of the Gymnasium and the Normal School" and an external courtyard for the boys' recreation15(Straube, 1993, p. 50).
Considering the period analyzed in this text, it is worth highlighting that, even with this new structural organization, after the first four decades of the 20th century, the institution began to face some obstacles regarding physical space and the capacity to serve secondary school students. According to Ernani Straube, in 1940, the Gymnasium had:
With 1119 students, 532 in the Fundamental Course and 587 in the Complementary Course, this number grew to 1323 in 1941, with 612 in Fundamental and 711 in Complementary. Due to this increase, the facilities became too small. With 11 classrooms, it began to operate in three shifts: morning, afternoon and evening, with overcrowded classrooms, many with more than 45 students. Increasingly, there were plans for expansion or the construction of a new building (Straube, 1993, p. 93).
The construction of a new building to house the school was urgently needed16. In short, the process began with the laying of the cornerstone on April 19, 1943, in Santos Andrade Square (the city center, where the Guaíra Theatre Complex is located today). However, construction was suspended a few months later, and a new, larger space was sought to house the school. The state government then acquired a plot of land a little further from the center and in an elevated location. According to Chaves Junior (2004, p. 164),
Since the area had different dimensions and terrain than the area initially intended, a public tender was opened for the development of a new project for the building [...], which was won by the Companhia Construtora Nacional, from São Paulo. Construction began in 1944, and on March 29, 1950 - the anniversary of the city of Curitiba - the new and sumptuous CEP building was inaugurated, considered at the time the largest educational establishment of its kind not only in Brazil, but also in South America.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by the President of the Republic, General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, the Minister of Education and Health, Professor Clemente Mariani, the Governor of the State, Moysés Lupion, and the Secretary of Education and Culture, Professor Erasmo Piloto, among other authorities. The grandeur of the building can be seen in the numbers: an estimated capacity to serve 5,000 students, with 48 classrooms, 21 faculty and student rooms, 7 medical-dental offices, 2 physics and chemistry laboratories, 3 amphitheaters, 2 gymnasiums, a party hall, a library, a sports complex with a soccer field, multi-sports courts, an athletics track, an Olympic swimming pool, and a learning pool. It also features a notable cinema-theater with a capacity for over 1,000 people (Chaves Junior, 2004; Straube, 1993).
Based on this data, the question that prompted the dialogue with the sources was: how did the process of filling the vacancies in the new building take place? Ernani Straube offers some clues:
In 1950, student enrollments were still carried out in the old building [...], reaching the impressive number of 2656 students, with 1498 in the Gymnasium Course, 26 in the Classical High School Course and 895 in the Scientific High School Course. It was the largest number of students in the history of the College, later surpassed, reaching 5000 (Straube, 1993, p. 113).
The analysis of the CEP documents shows a gradual occupation of the school space. For example, in 1950, there were a total of 37 classes in operation, 23 in middle school and 14 in high school; in 1952, 41 classes, 30 in middle school and 11 in high school; in 1954, 43 classes, 30 in middle school and 13 in high school; in 1955, 45 classes, 31 in middle school and 14 in high school; and in 1957, 46 classes, 32 in middle school and 14 in high school.
Specifically for the year 1959, the data in Table 4 indicate how the service was organized:
It is clear that the expansion of CEP's services was, obviously, connected to the expansion of the institution's physical structure. Despite the institution's representativeness, its central location, and the long tradition of being the oldest secondary school in the state, we return to the central questions of this text: which segments of the middle classes participated in this expansion process, specifically? What student profiles comprised the public served by CEP during this considerable increase in available places? Some indications of a gradual diversification are presented in the following section.
The Gradual Occupation of the New CEP Building and Full-Time Classes: Indications of Diversification of Class Fractions in Secondary Education
The beginning of the 1960s was marked by some significant changes at CEP. It can be said that the most impactful, from an organizational point of view, was the offering of Full-Time Classes. This was a pedagogical experiment that, supported by the "experimental ideals" of that context, promoted curricular modifications, the organization of classes with a reduced number of students, and a selection process that suggests the experience provided access to secondary education for a diverse social stratification.
In summary, between 1960 and 1966, the selection process for admission to CEP worked as follows: after candidates passed the entrance exam for the first year of the secondary school cycle in the so-called "regular classes",17 families were consulted about their interest in enrolling their children in the "Full-Time Classes". Because places in these new classes were limited, other selection criteria were applied to organize only two classes of 25 students each. These classes would then have full-time attendance at the school (morning and afternoon), as well as a significant set of educational practices and other modifications and flexibilities in the curriculum, shaping an educational experience that sought the much-desired renewal of secondary education (Dallabrida, 2023; Souza Chaloba, 2009).
The sources related to educational innovation at the Paraná school reveal how social stratifications were represented in the student body, not only in the Full-Time Classes, but also in the so-called regular classes. One of these documents used is the research conducted by the coordinator of the Full-Time Classes, Professor Ruth Compiani, as a result of her participation in the Seminars for Training Personnel in Educational Research, held at the Regional Center for Educational Research in São Paulo, promoted by INEP.
At the end of 1963, Professor Ruth presented the results of a research project supervised by Samuel Levine and Cléa Rameh, entitled "Comparison of academic performance in Portuguese and Mathematics of students in Regular and Full-Time Classes of the Secondary School Course at the Paraná State College" (Compiani, 1964a). The methods and techniques of educational research discussed in the seminars were applied using data from the daily routine of the CEP (Colégio Estadual do Paraná). Table 5 presents some of this data:
The percentage distribution of the average stratification is quite approximate, using parental education as a parameter. The difference in the highest levels of education (levels I and II) may mean that these families understood the importance of investing in education, as advocated in the pedagogical proposal of the Full-Time Classes, thus maintaining some degree of social stratification. At the other extreme, the significant difference in the lowest level of education on the list (level V) suggests a family's belief that a longer educational trajectory in the Full-Time Classes would result in the possibility of social mobility.
For the purposes of this text, it is important to highlight the existence of some diversification of social groups, considering the parents' education levels. Although the correlation between education and belonging to social groups is not automatic, it is very likely that educational trajectories resulted in social positions consistent with the expectations and opportunities of the world of work.
The refinement of the identification and analysis of the different class fractions that were in the CEP can be observed from another study carried out by Professor Ruth Compiani: School success as seen by students in the middle school course at the Paraná State College (1964b). In this study, she sought to establish relationships between socioeconomic level and school success, highlighting the factors causing school failure, especially from the point of view of repeating high school students.
Similarly, Compiani conducted the investigation with a group of students from the 4th grade of the middle school cycle from both classes (full-time and regular) and, this time, used another form of classification, namely, socioeconomic origin, according to an adaptation of Hutchinson's Prestige Hierarchy Scale. This scale, which was based on the parents' occupation, was organized as follows: I - High political and administrative positions; II - Liberal professions; III - Lower supervisory or inspection positions of non-manual occupations; IV - Routine and similar non-manual occupations; V - Supervision of manual labor and similar occupations; VI - Specialized and similar manual occupations; and VII - Non-specialized manual occupations (Hutchinson, 1960). These data are presented in Table 6:
In the analytical treatment of the information gathered for the research, Ruth Compiani (1964b, p. 9) highlights that it is possible to perceive
The percentages at each socioeconomic level are almost identical, which allows us to state that these two groups of students are equivalent in terms of socioeconomic origin.
The analyzed data reveal evidence of a gradual diversification of the class fractions attending secondary education at CEP, both in regular classes and in full-time classes, suggesting that access to secondary education is no longer restricted to more traditional segments of the middle class, expanding to include families with varying levels of schooling and occupations.
However, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the analysis of this data must be done considering the specific context of Paraná. Beyond the exceptional nature of the CEP (Centro de Educação Profissional - Professional Education Center), the state made a considerable investment in the process of organizing an education network, representing a significant expansion of secondary education services. As Chaves Junior (2017) and Oliveira (2023) show, from 1947 onwards, Paraná was governed by two opposing political structures: “Lupionism”, led by Moysés Lupion, and “anti-Lupionism”, represented, among others, by Bento Munhoz da Rocha Neto.
Despite the rivalry, political polarization, and the adoption of different investment priorities, both mandates18 were characterized by the "art of populating," an expression originated from the book O Paraná reinventado: política e governo (The Reinvented Paraná: Politics and Government), by the Paraná Institute for Economic and Social Development (Ipardes, 1989). In just over a decade, the material prosperity generated by agricultural production and industrial expansion established the foundations upon which the governors would develop their administrations. Among these actions was the expansion of secondary education access, as demonstrated previously.
In this same vein, it is necessary to highlight that the capital city of Curitiba underwent significant urban remodeling in the 1950s and 1960s, seeking to establish itself as "a capital city," connected to the development process occurring in the state and national context of the period. Structural investments of various kinds resulted, according to Antônio Santos (1995), in the "refounding of Curitiba," represented by the planning and construction of a significant set of buildings and public spaces primarily intended for political administration. This scenario also provided a stage for the expansion of secondary education, given the rapid population growth, industrialization, and public policies aimed at expanding educational opportunities.
Final remarks
With the expansion of secondary education and the increased demand and interest in this level of education, especially from the mid-20th century onwards, the varied representation of class fractions gradually became more noticeable in some educational institutions, as seems to be the case with CEP. This school, located in Curitiba, exemplifies how the growing demand for schooling was accompanied by a diversification of the class fractions attending secondary education. Although the presence of different fractions intensified over the decades, the data indicate that social mobility through schooling was strongly linked to the expectations of middle-class families, who sought to guarantee their children a longer educational trajectory and access to more prestigious social positions.
The particularities of Paraná, such as rapid population growth, the industrialization of urban centers, and significant migratory flows, contributed to a differentiated expansion of secondary education in the state. CEP, as a model institution, not only followed this movement but also innovated by implementing pedagogical experiences such as Full-Time Classes, which allowed for the observation of signs of social diversification among students, even though the democratization of access to secondary education remained a challenge. It is important to note that the understanding that the presence of a diversification of class fractions represented an effort to democratize secondary education promoted by the institution seems mistaken (Chaves Junior, 2017, p. 141).
Finally, it is important to emphasize that the understanding of the expansion processes analyzed in this study stemmed from the case of Paraná, which allowed for highlighting the unique aspects of this context, without, however, authorizing direct generalizations to other realities. The research from which this article originates remains under development and has sought to examine how similar processes were configured in different states and historical circumstances. The dataset presented here refers to a specific segment of Paraná, Curitiba, and the Paraná State College, which is why its results should be interpreted in light of these limitations. The regional disparities observed in the national data indicate that each state followed its own trajectory, conditioned by particular economic, social, and political factors. Thus, it becomes necessary to broaden the investigation to other contexts in order to understand how different fractions of the middle classes and other social groups were inserted into the schooling processes, as well as how educational policies impacted the configuration of access to secondary education in Brazil.
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