Integral education and work: conceptions in dispute in the Manifestos of 1932 and 1959

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the appropriations of the concepts of Integral Education and Work, in the documents Manifesto of the Pioneers of Educação Nova (1932) and Manifesto Mais Uma Vez Convocados (1959), both produced by intellectuals of different political-philosophical orientations and published at important junctions in the Brazilian educational scenario. The two documents, despite the distance in time of almost three decades, have become milestones in the history of Brazilian education due to their democratic character, by bringing together different groups in defense of public, secular and free schools. In this sense, we seek to understand that the concept of integral education prevails in the aforementioned documents, and the meaning attributed to work as a pedagogical category, insofar as it is also addressed by its signatories. In theoretical and methodological terms, we are guided by historical and dialectical materialism, insofar as we do not only want to present the documents in a descriptive way, but problematize them, highlighting their contradictions, limits and, above all, the disputed corporate projects. Through the analyzes, we found that in the aforementioned documents there are direct relations between Integral Education and Work. We also found that the concept of Integral Education and the pedagogical sense attributed to Work are anchored by the hegemony of the national-developmentalist project of dependent capitalism, whose oscillations are due to internal disputes within the ruling class itself.