O Ensino secundário no sul do antigo Mato Grosso: o Colégio Estadual Presidente Vargas de Dourados (1951-1974)

Abstract

This dissertation was developed during the Federal University of Grande Dourados’ postgraduate program in education, in the following research line: History of Education, Memory and Society. Its objective was to analyze the expansion of high school in Mato Grosso, especially in the South of the state, starting from an approach that focus on the history of the first public school to offer this stage of education in the city of Dourados, that is, President Vargas State School, during the period from 1951 to 1974. Starting from the history of this school, with the expansion of the high schooling in the south of the old Mato Grosso and in Dourados, this research aimed to verify the significance of this institution’s establishment in the city and to identify the political forces that led Mato Grosso’s government to build this school; to characterize the socio-economic profile of the students, from sampling, in relation to age and origin; to examine the profile of the teaching body, in relation to their education, and finally, to analyze President Vargas State School’s curriculum organization. In relation to the chronological time-frame, the year 1951 signals the period of this institution’s creation, and the year 1974 indicates the decree of the Law of National Education 5.692/71, which brought changes to the structure and management of the school. The New Cultural History perspective guides this research, together with a theoretical historic referential, history of education, curriculum, among others. Studies and research on the expansion of the secondary education in Brazil, Mato Grosso and the south of the state and on the colonization and population of the City of Dourados were also performed. The archival research included different types of documents collected from the Federal University of Grande Dourados Center for Regional Documentation, Dourados Center for Educational Technology, Dourados Municipal Museum, among others. The documental analysis enabled the confirmation that the expansion which occurred in Mato Grosso’s high schooling, in 1950s decade, fostered the creation of President Vargas State School in Dourados. State Political forces, especially local politicians were involved in the creation of the school. This institution, during the researched period, catered for students belonging mainly to the middle classes, with ages that ranged from 14 to 39 years and from Mato Grosso in its majority. President Vargas State School’s curriculum, during the researched period, underwent alterations according to the norms and regulations issued by the competent bodies which, in turn, were responding to the effervescent pedagogic lines in Brazil. It was concluded that the initially established disciplines, with its marked humanistic syllabus, were replaced by disciplines with contents which had a scientific culture.