Liberal state and education in Portugal: social integration, freedom of teaching and secularization (40’s to 80’s of the nineteenth century)

• Autor(a) principal: Pintassilgo, Joaquim
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/18251
• topic: Liberalism; State; Social integration; Freedom of teaching; Secularization

INTRODUCTION. This article intends to analyze, for the Portuguese case,different dimensions of the State construction as State Educator. We will focus on the second half of the nineteenth century, a decisive period in the construction of educational modernity. We will seek to draw the main trends of a process marked by a set of important dilemmas and ambiguities. METHOD. This is a historical research by means of documental analysis. We use an approach that situates itself at an intersection zone between Educational History and Cultural History. The study sources thereby assume a central role. We sought to confront different sources whose content we have analyzed. RESULTS. The liberal educational rhetoric gives education a central role in social transformation. The study clarifies some of the main actions of the liberal State aimed at the construction and control of the educational system. This project is based on the Enlightenment’s axiological and civic inheritance. The school arises as a privileged place for socialization of the Portuguese. Strategies regarding social integration and behavioral normalization are emphasized, having as their reference the ideal citizen figure. DISCUSSION. Above all we sought to discuss the ambivalences and dilemmas underlying the process being analyzed. How were the State’s teaching fortification system and the affirmation of teaching freedom made compatible? How were the State’s voluntarism and the communities’ resistance to schooling combined? How were the control logic of liberal education and communities’ resistance to schooling articulated? How did it seek to integrate permanencies (like civility) with innovations (like civics)? How could the secularization movement and the preservation of Catholicism’s integrating role be reconciled in the educational field?