As ideias de Herbert Spencer nos Manuais de História da Educação em circulação no Brasil entre o século XX e os primeiros anos do século XXI

Abstract

The present work presents the analysis of the representations of Herbert Spencer's ideas in the History of Education manuals in circulation in Brazil between the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first century, which included the manuals with foreign authors that were published in Brazil in the period from 1939 to 2010, as well as the manuals with Brazilian authors that were published in Brazil between 1914 and 2007. We started by reviewing the reference bibliography on the subject, as well as seeking theoretical foundation in the ideas of Chervel (1990); Chartier (1991, 1999) and Chopin (2004). The research methodology used for the realization of this historiographical work consisted of bibliographic research, relating as documentary sources the manuals of History of Education themselves, which total 12 works by foreign authors and 33 works by Brazilian authors. In addition, we use the books of Herbert Spencer published from the second half of the nineteenth century contained in his so-called Synthetic Philosophy. We elaborate an analysis of the concepts and categories present in Spencer's work and the representation of these in the History of Education manuals under the focus of his main ideas such as Evolutionism and; the role of the school, with a focus on the hierarchy of knowledge and, above all, the importance of science teaching