A revista do ensino (MG) (1925-1940) e as representações de docência como sacerdócio: modelos normativos convergentes entre Estado e Igreja Católica

Abstract

This work is linked to the research line History and Historiography of Education of the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Uberlândia. The theme addressed deals with the periodical press specializing in education, where the Revista do Ensino de Minas Gerais (Minas Gerais Teaching Magazine) was chosen as the source and object of study, a long-running periodical produced by the Minas Gerais Official Press that circulated during the period (1925-1971). Its first phase (1925-1940) was selected for the investigation. The thesis argues that the social representation of teachers as priests has medieval historical origins in Catholicism and has survived over time, materializing in this official vehicle where Catholic ideology evoked sacrificial teaching models for primary education. The main question driving the research is: how was teaching represented by Catholic ideology in the texts published in Revista do Ensino (MG)? After that, other questions arose: What types of representations of primary school teachers did Catholic ideology most explicitly convey? What were the Catholic pedagogical contents specifically aimed at teacher training college students and primary school teachers like? What did they focus on most? What was their iconography like? How did the materiality of this magazine communicate with this audience? The central objective is to analyze the representations of teaching constructed by Catholic ideology in Revista do Ensino (MG). The secondary objectives are: to investigate the first education and teaching magazines that appeared in the world, in Brazil, and in Minas Gerais; to investigate the emergence of the magazine under analysis, and to expose its main material characteristics. This historical and documentary research will follow the postulates and theoretical-methodological procedures of Cultural History to examine the 175 issues published in the first phase of this official educational publication, whose work drew on the concept of representation widely discussed by Roger Chartier. The first chapter studied the context of the creation of the first education and teaching magazines, from foreign ones to the creation/resurgence of Revista do Ensino (MG). The second chapter studied the characteristics of the materiality of this official publication: the main covers and editorial changes undergone in the face of the educational policies and reforms existing at the time, how many pages were produced, how many addressed Catholic ideology, how many texts were published, and the subsequent analysis of the materiality of Catholic statements, and finally the identity of the writers of these publications. In the third chapter, the focus of the research was on representations of female teachers. The analytical categories highlighted were: a) representations of teaching as a priesthood; b) representations of woman-wife-mother; c) the feminization of teaching in Minas Gerais; d) representations of: female teachers in general; female teachers who are mothers; and female teachers who are spinsters (with maternal instincts); e) the Pedagogy of Jesus Christ; and f) representation of female teachers/normalists as priestesses. The results showed that most of the publications were made by educational authorities representing the interests of the State. Catholic ideology used the pages of Revista do Ensino (MG) as a channel of communication to disseminate its ideas and prescriptions aimed at teachers and teacher trainees, constructing representations for this audience of how they should be and behave in the world. Content was published that instructed these educators to draw inspiration from the teaching archetype of Jesus Christ, seen as the ideal normative model of a teacher and pedagogue. Based on this model, they were called teachers and encouraged to feel like priestesses, content with the low pay in this career, as the emphasis of these publications was on self-sacrifice and love for children in order to perform the “sacred” pedagogical mission. Finally, it was considered that the interests of the State and the Catholic Church were reconciled in the representation of the female teaching image as a true priesthood, as the Church sought to restore its flock, and teachers would be the spokespersons for the dissemination of this religious ideology in education. And the State was interested in hiring cheap labor for official public education.