Ingerência política e trabalho docente: o processo de organização do magistério público primário em Minas Gerais (1889-1918)

Abstract

The main objective of this thesis was to investigate the role of political leaders in the process of organizing public primary teacher education in the state of Minas Gerais in the first decades after the Proclamation of the Republic. More specifically, I seek to analyze the relationship between politics and education by highlighting three constituents of the political-educational configuration at that time. The first refers to the reach of the coro-nelistas practices (local leaders’ actions and interference) in the daily life of the public elementary schools and the teachers’ work. The second is about the process of regulating the work of teachers as public servants, with emphasis on proposals that could prevent or consolidate coronelistas practices in elementary schools. The last one is the involvement of politicians in the associative entities in Minas Gerais, founded at the time of the im-plementation of the Grupos Escolares (a type of educational establishment), and the expansion of teachers' responsibilities. My main hypothesis is that the excessive interfer-ence of the local leaders contributed to giving visibility to the public school as a space for exchanging favors, which possibly made it difficult to understand the institutionalization of the teachers’ work as a public function. However, the significant interference of politi-cians did not prevent teachers from beginning to realize the importance of their role as public servants who were the protagonists of elementary education in the state. The anal-ysis of school relations is based on the work of Norbert Elias and Edward P. Thompson, giving visibility to the relational dynamics of interdependence and the actions developed by the teachers themselves, as the result of a long learning process, built and shared in everyday relationships. The main sources used for the development of this research were the documents found in the Archivo Público Mineiro, such as the correspondence sent to the Secretaría do Interior, containing letters about the schools’ daily life. The school legislation produced between 1891 and 1918 was also analyzed, with emphasis on the regulations regarding the teachers’ work. The work produced by classical authors of the period concerning this research was also consulted, in addition to the newspapers pub-lished at the time. The official reports from the State Presidents and the Annals of the Minas Gerais Legislative Assembly were also analyzed. The analysis of all these sources contributed to the understanding of school relations; conflicts, negotiations, disputes, and interests present in the process of constitution of teachers as public servants.