O Patronato de menores de Dourados - MT/MS: cultura escolar e estratégias da Ação Social Franciscana (1950-1983)

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the field of History of School Institutions and has as object of research the Patronage of Minors of Dourados - Franciscan Social Action, a confessional institution created at the initiative of the Order of Friars Minor from Germany to the south of the old Mato Grosso. The time limit established corresponds to the first year of operation of the Patronage of Minors of Dourados in 1950 until the end of their school activities in 1983. The central problem is to understand to what extent the strategies of action of Franciscan Social Action and the school culture developed in the Patronage of Minors of Dourados legitimized the consolidation of Catholic influence and contributed to the expansion of teaching in the region? The general objective is to analyze the history and the vestiges of the school culture of the Patronage of Minors de Dourados, under the aegis of the Franciscan educational system between 1950 and 1983. The research is anchored in the method of the New Cultural History, above all, in the concepts of strategies and tactics of Certeau (1998), of practices and representations of Chartier (1988) and of School Culture of Julia (2001) and Viñao Frago (2001). It is a historical research, with methodological procedures of bibliographic and documentary research. Among the sources used, the tombo books and chronicle books stand out; minutes and legislation; iconographic photographs and records; period newspapers; school registry books, time books, among others. From the dialogue with the theoretical framework and the inventoried sources, the following categories of analysis emerged as parameters for the research: school culture; mission and catechesis; underprivileged minors; poverty, charity, philanthropy and assistance. After analyzes undertaken, it was verified with this thesis that, despite having been created in the official documents as a Patronage of Minors, in practice, the institution did not attend the so-called underprivileged minors, even so, it contributed to the expansion of education in the region, having been responsible for the schooling of a large portion of childhood in Dourados. The results also point out that the school had as its objectives not only the instruction of the children of Dourados, but also the dissemination and consolidation of the Franciscan missionary project, spiritual formation and the incorporation of behaviors of the Christian life, aiming to contain the expansion of competing ideologies and a greater engagement of the population with the Church and the practices of the Catholic religion. This research contributes to the expansion of the state of knowledge on the theme addressed and to the historiography of education, as well as to the preservation of the documentary heritage and the various historical sources that the investigation has managed to systematize and to extract from the silence of the archives, in order to allowing the civil and scientific community access to information and opening up to new research possibilities.