GRAMSCI ’S CONCEPT OF INTELLECTUAL: CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS WRITING THE INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF EDUCATION

Abstract

The article sets out to discuss the profundity of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of intellectual for the writing of the history of education, especially the intellectual history of education. The narrative synthetically presents the process of the constitution of the field of the History of Education and the Intellectual History of Education, articulating them with the fields of History and Education. It revisits this Italian philosopher’s principal reflections on intellectual history and establishes a dialogue between the concept of intellectual as organizer of culture and the intellectual journey of Paulo Freire. As a basis it uses the debate on Historiography and the Historiography of Brazilian Education to raise the issue of the place of the History of Education and of the Intellectual History of Education in the fields of History and Education and in the literature of Intellectual History and Intellectual Sociology, especially in Prison Notebooks, in order to discuss the theme of the analytical possibility of a Gramascian discussion. This study sustains the potentiality of the concept of intellectual as organizer of culture to discuss the actions of characters and groups which have set up cultural and educational projects and occupy functions in different spheres of State and civil society.