Orfanato como instituição educacional? o caso do Lar Espírita Maria José Fratari, Ituiutaba, MG, 1953–62

Abstract

The history of school institutions has become a fertile field for academic research in Brazil. However, although it can offer a comprehensive view of educational processes, it is likely that there are still inadequately studied institutions as educational institutions. This study seeks to contribute to filling this gap by focusing on the relationship between spiritist orphanages and school education: to what extent can an orphanage be included in the category of educational institution. To speculate on the creation and operation of an orphanage in the city of Ituiutaba, MG, between the years 1950-60 and integrated into the Spiritism propagation movement in Brazil, the study started with the question: can an orphanage be seen as an educational institution? It refers to the object of historical-educational study: the Maria José Fratari Spiritist Home, an orphanage understood here as a potential educational institution connected to important events for understanding and writing a history of education in the municipality of Ituiutaba. In this sense, the study aimed, in general terms, to explore the history of community-based welfare-oriented school institutions; specifically, it aimed to systematize a preliminary historical-conceptual understanding of social assistance to children; characterize the appearance of the Maria José Fratari Spiritist Home as a welfare institution and recognize its potential status as an educational institution. Subjacent to this study is documentary research in the field of the history of school institutions. The research benefited from procedures and concepts of the dialectical historical materialism method, which provides tools to focus on dimensions that border on a social assistance institution: struggles and confrontations, material and social elements that facilitate and support the establishment of an orphanage in a context of amplified economic and political power, but with little attention to social demands such as education. To situate the discussion in the theoretical-methodological debate, the research included the construction of a theoretical-conceptual foundation based on Nosella and Buffa (2009), Saviani (2005), Rosemberg (1984; 1999; 1997), Marcílio (1997; 1998; 2019), Kuhlmann Júnior (2000; 2015), Rizzini and Rizzini (2004), Sá (2006), Arruda (2011), and others. The research sources were minutes of the spiritist society that administered the orphanage. The research results do not allow for a definite statement that the spiritist orphanage was an educational institution, nor that it was not. Through the analysis of sources and studies, the orphanage was consolidated primarily as a welfare institution, but it had strong connections with spiritist schools through the " ladies' society for the support of childhood ": on the one hand, they took care of a school cafeteria, and on the other hand, there were members who taught in such schools. Thus, the society can indeed be affirmed as an educational institution. It is precisely this connection that allows us to hypothesize that the spiritist orphanage also acted as an educational institution in terms of guiding and directing resident children to their early stages of schooling. It is called a hypothesis because it opened up a promising possibility to expand the undergraduate research to the level of a master's degree in the history of education.