Resumen de Pluralizing meanings: The Monitorial System of Education in Latin America in the Early Nineteenth Century
Eugenia Roldán Vera, Marcelo A. Caruso, Marcilaine Soares Inácio, Walquiria Miranda Rosa, Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho
This contribution deals with the adoption of the Lancasterian Monitorial System of Education in the State of Minas Gerais (Brazil) during the nineteenth century. The authors analyse the adoption of this device in the normalization of educational practices in schools and in the consolidation of the school system in the region. The structure and culture of a society, which still heavily relied on the work of slaves, framed the appropriation of this pedagogical innovation. The ambivalence between the rhetoric of freedom and independence and the search for new disciplinary devices pervaded all educational efforts and it also did so in the process of appropriation of the method. Along these lines, the authors present the discussion of the liberal elites of the region favouring the method, some new devices introduced in the culture of punishment, and the attitudes of the teachers faced with this innovation.
