O plano de propaganda contra o analfabetismo e a constituição de Parelhas em um município pedagógico (1928-1930)

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyse how the Propaganda Plan against Illiteracy, a project created, implemented and applied in the city of Parelhas at the end of the 1920s, more precisely between 1928 and 1930, during the term of Mayor Florêncio Luciano, contributed to the constitution of Parelhas as a Pedagogical Municipality. This concept is anchored in the discussions proposed by the historian of education Justino Magalhães, who, together with the analyses of other theorists used in this thesis, such as Michel Foucault, from whom the definition of the arts of governing is taken, helped in the reflection on understanding the political organisation of the Republic. Linked to this initial idea, we also call on the statements of historian Clarisse Nunes, who helped to reflect on the modernisation of the city through the educational lens, as well as historian Dominique Julia, who helped to understand the elements that make up school culture, which are: its specific space, the courses offered and its professional staff. All of these theorists were able to make sense of a hermeneutic analysis of sources, which in this research are distributed in minutes, decrees, laws, reports from governors and the mayor in the context of the plan's installation, school attendance, censuses, lesson plans, photographs of the plan's classes and letters suggesting the maintenance of the schools. Thus, this vast collection of documents was problematised methodologically by researchers such as Júlio Aróstegui, who helped to understand the dialogues that arose from the cross-referencing of documentation through the taxonomy of the sources, i.e. through their variety, which made it possible to think about the occurrence of a Pedagogical Municipality in conjunction with the investments made in republican education at regional and, consequently, national level. In addition to him, historian Jörn Rüssen also helped with the heuristics, criticism and narrative of the documentation, in other words, a careful understanding of the plan's documentation. In this sense, the research carried out here revealed a change in the urban aspects of the city of Parelhas and, above all, in its rural area, with the expansion of rudimentary schools in the communities. In addition, it was also possible to perceive the processes of sociability that began from the exchange of information generated from the inspections carried out by the Parelhas City Council, through the Rural, Urban and Central Commissions against illiteracy, in addition to the contacts made by the Natal Department of Education, elements that contributed to the constitution of Parelhas as a laboratory for the formation of a pedagogical municipality with the pretensions of social and political organisation of the First Republic.