Brazilian professional education from the 1920s to the 1950s in the writing of Francisco Montojos (1900–1981)

Abstract

The text has professional education (PE) as its background thematic in Brazil from the 1920s to the 1950s, with an emphasis on the performance, writing and representations of engineer-educator Francisco Montojos, who acted on the PE of the Federal Government from 1927 to 1961. In the decades of 1930s and 1940, the government and industrial business leaders became involved in the redefinition of PE institutions and pedagogy. This process marked by the systematization of ideas, disputes and changes, involved intellectuals and implied in writing of texts. The article identifies ideias in circulation, disputes and groups of allies. It places the circulation of ideas from the “New School” movement in the PE environment, with contrast on the pedagogy of manual works. Empiricism searched primary sources, including texts by Montojos. In an auxiliary way its also examined texts by other intellectuals in the circle, such as Lourenço Filho, Corinto da Fonseca and Roberto Mange. The questions and the treatment of the findings were inspired in terms of the history of intellectuals.