Do confessional ao laico, do privado ao público: Escola Estadual Nossa Senhora das Graças Campina Verde, MG - 1950-80

Abstract

The research reported in this thesis has taken as subject matter Nossa Senhora das Graças school, created by the mission Congregação São Vicente de Paula in the city of Campina Verde, MG. It focused the 1950 80 period in order to show conflicts between municipal and state governments and the private sector over resources for education. Its main aim was to characterize the passage of this religious school to the public sector firstly to the City Hall, then to the state government. Its specific aims included examining the formation of Brazilian society and its relationship with the Catholic Church, with regard to the clash between public education and private education, contextualizing socioeconomic and political aspects and its relationship with that city educational processes, finally, presenting the school functioning contained in dropout, repetition and student promotion rates. Sources to develop the research included interviews with former students, former teachers, and current personnel, besides minutes of meeting, regiments, enrollment books, correspondence received and sent, statistical data, and photographs. In the search for evidencing conflicts between public education and private one, Catholic Church stood out as an instance that helped shaping Brazilian society with its influence in politics and education. We can say that the school had broad support from municipal and state government. In other words, secularism succumbed before economic difficulties of the confessional project implemented in Campina Verde to the point of turning the school into a state one, public and non secular.