A cultura escolar no Colégio Nossa Senhora das Vitórias em Assú/RN (1927-1947)

Abstract

The proposal of this study is the analysis of the school culture of the College of Our Lady of Victories, in Assú - Rio Grande do Norte, since its foundation on March 9, 1927, by the initiative of the local church and intellectuals of the time, extending until 1947 marked by the effervescent debate between Catholic Church and state in the educational field. The objective is to answer how the school culture of such an institution has been constituted, throughout its twenty years. In order to do so, we analyze documents of the institution, annual reports, minutes, journals and books of the time, guided by the studies of Chartier (1991), Elias (2001), Certeau (2001), Frago (1995), Magalhães 2005) and Julia (2001). Thus, considering the discussion about an educational institution, the school culture emerges as the central category of analysis, which guided the choice of the specific categories of the study: The first female teachers, School Festivals, Norms and school discipline. The College Our Lady of Victories was conceived in 1922, by the initiative of the local Catholic Church and intellectuals of the time, who wanted an education for girls based on Catholic precepts. The installation of the College represented a significant landmark for the city of Assú because it was an institution initially destined to the education of women, with the purpose of inserting girls into literate, civic and domestic culture, according to the precepts of the time. The purpose of setting up a Catholic College in Assú, run by nuns from Europe, did not occur in isolation, was part of the Catholic Restoration project that was projected until the 1940s throughout the country. In Assú the responsibility to assume the functioning of the College Our Lady of Victories was entrusted to the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love, coming from Vienna / Austria, Sister Teresina Werner, who later received the invitation to install denominational institutions in the Northeast. Therefore, we show that the school culture produced inside the College was a vital element for the work of evangelization and to meet the needs of the elite and the Catholic Church. For formative purposes they envisioned the formation of good mothers, exemplary educators and future servants of the motherland. The reconstitution of the historical identity of this institution contributes to the configuration of the history of North-Rio-Grandense school education.