Vestir-se pela e para a escola: representações da obrigatoriedade do uso do uniforme escolar no Liceu Maranhense (1894-1909)

Abstract

This study is a product of the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Maranhão in the line History, Educational Policies, Work and Human Formation. It was funded by the Foundation for Research and Scientific and Technological Development of Maranhão and is part of the work carried out by the Center for Studies in the History of Documentation and Reading Practices. Our problem focuses on evaluating to what extent the representations about the mandatory school uniform of the Liceu Maranhense, recorded by the newspapers Pacotilha and Diário do Maranhão, may have influenced the processes of production, indication, approval, distribution and use of this garment (1894- 1909). The objective is to understand these different representations from the meanings attributed to the object by the press, students, family members, market, teachers and the State. The research is operationalized in: 1) location and characterization of the speeches; 2) identification of the subjects who produced the news and who were cited in the texts; 3) analysis of the Lyceum's functioning and representations, by the meaning of training for each individual/group, and its possible relationships with the adoption or denial of official clothing. The research is characterized as bibliographical and documental, based on authors that address: school culture, school material culture and clothing, in addition to reports, messages, regulations and legislation of the period. The analysis and treatment of the sources is based on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of Cultural History, which foresee the study of the history of objects in their materiality, practices in their differences and social and cultural configurations, changes in psychic structures and conceptual armor, analyzed in their historical variations. As a result, we observed that the safety of the student body was one of the main motivations for acquiring the uniform, however, the existence of waiver requests and the subsequent easing of the imposition, pointed to a low adoption of clothing, which may be related to the increase in the number of students. school dropout. This research contributes to the History of Education in Brazil and to the History of Education in Maranhão, through the use of the press as a source for the study of representations of the school uniform through the different practices that influenced the organization of the institution, marking itself as the idealization of two clothing models may have been indicative of the presence of economically distinct groups in the school, in addition to other conditions that shaped the history of the local school material culture.