Representações da cultura escolar na Escola Metodista de Dourados-MT (1955-1977)

Abstract

This Thesis investigates the history of school institutions, focusing on the Methodist School located in the municipality of Dourados-MT, in southern Mato Grosso, established through the initiative of Protestant missionaries of Methodist origin. The defined time frame encompasses its creation in 1955 and the year 1977, its last year of operation. The general objective is to analyze the representations and vestiges of school culture within the institution. The central problem seeks to understand which representations of school culture, developed in daily institutional life, legitimized Protestant influence and contributed to the expansion of schooling in southern Mato Grosso. The work is based on the assumptions of the New Cultural History, from the perspective of School Culture and the History of Educational Institutions, especially the concepts of representation and school culture, drawing on authors such as Chartier, Magalhães, Benito Escolano, and Viñao Frago, among others. This is a historical research study, characterized by methodological procedures typical of bibliographic and documentary research. To construct the narrative, sources from the following collections were used: the Regional Documentation Center (CDR), the Regional Education Office (DRE) of UFGD, the Central Methodist Church of Dourados (IMCD), and the State Department of Education (SED), in addition to iconographic records and oral sources collected throughout the research through interviews with former students, former teachers, and the former principal, discussed from the perspective of Thematic Oral History. The results indicate that the Methodist School of Dourados not only aimed to instruct children but also to consolidate and disseminate religious precepts as a constitutive part of its school culture, embedded in the pedagogical practices developed with the students, such as the telling of biblical stories, Thanksgiving services, moments of prayer before the start of classes, and Christian musicality. The articulation between pedagogical activities and religious formation allows us to understand that the representations of school culture constituted the institutional practice, through the ways of educating and evangelizing the individuals who comprised the school. The Thesis argues that the Methodist School of Dourados was created to serve the local elites, mobilizing education through the consolidation of a school culture disseminated in its pedagogical practices, linked to Protestantism. This form of representation impacted multiple dimensions of school life, influencing not only the curriculum and teaching practices, but also sports activities, graduation ceremonies, the sale of religious articles, and civic parades, thus configuring an educational project articulated with Protestant confessional values.