A criança ajustada: aspectos do pensamento de Dante Moreira Leite sobre a infância urbana brasileira

Abstract

Dante Moreira Leite worked at Regional Centre for Educational Research of São Paulo (SP-CRPE) between 1957 and 1960. During this period, he published three articles in the journal Pesquisa e Planejamento, newsletter CRPE-SP: The toy reading and child (1958); Automatic promotion and fitness curriculum to student development (1959); Content Analysis of reading books primary school (1960). This paper discusses certain aspects of the pedagogical thinking of Dante Moreira Leite, analyzing the articles cited. We put under suspicion innovative education proposed by the author and his criticism of what he called traditional teaching. The submission of articles mentioned a critical methodological repertoire, brings out power relations within the project of liberal education designed for Leite. For this, the references were reflections of Michel Foucault about the modern political rationality, notably his studies on the concept of biopolitics. These methodological tools investigate values ingrained in the discourse of Leite. You can see that the speech renewing established social rules guiding appropriate social adjustment of the child. In suggesting the replacement of old schemes for certain educational devices reordering of students in the school organization, Leite proposed solutions to the problem of the adequacy of the child to the structures of urbanindustrial society.