O livro de ensino religioso no Maranhão: uma análise de Licções de História Santa (1847-1882)

Abstract

This research was conducted within the scope of the Postgraduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Maranhão, linked to the research line History, educational policies, work and human formation and to the Center for Studies and Documentation in History and Reading Practices in Maranhão. Its central objective was to analyze the use of the book Licções de História Santa, as an artifact of school material culture, in the processes of inculcating moral values and social discipline underway in Maranhão's education system between 1847 and 1882. The thesis defended is that Licções de História Santa was used as an instrument of moralization in Maranhão's public education, aiming at the inculcation of values and social discipline through a pedagogy of morality. In this sense, the book reflected a complex network of interests, serving the civilizing ideals of the State, the catechizing project of the Church, and the need to establish norms of school conduct. This bibliographical and documentary research was based on the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Cultural History, engaging with Chartier (1990), De Certeau (2014), Bourdieu (2003), Castro (2009), and Castellanos (2017). Historical sources included school textbooks, newspapers, laws, regulations, reports from provincial presidents, legislative debates published in the press, as well as theses, dissertations, scientific articles, and theoretical works that supported the conceptual construction of the investigation. Within the adopted scope, three books of religious content published by Maranhão printing houses and adopted in the Province of Maranhão were identified, among which Licções de História Santa was defined as the central source and object of the research due to the robustness of the documentary evidence gathered regarding its circulation, prescription, and appropriations. The investigation demonstrated that the local production of the work, its editorial materiality, its organization into short lessons and questions and answers, as well as its textual adaptation to the children's universe, were articulated with the schooling of religious education and the shaping of pedagogical practices aimed at controlling school conduct. It was also found that the compendium transcended its catechetical function and became a power device, legitimizing obedience, teacher authority, the internalization of norms, and the moral formation of childhood. It is concluded that Licções de História Santa constituted a relevant piece for the schooling of religious education and for the consolidation of the school system in the Province of Maranhão, becoming a central artifact in the processes of moralizing childhood and social disciplining in the 19th century.