This paper explores the transformation sUFFered by the teacher category during the military regime (1964-1985). It shows that teachers did not originate exclusively from the urban middle classes and fractions of the economical elite, but also from popular classes. An ascendant and descendant social mobilization process thus took place: those who originated from "upper" classes became proletarianized, while those from popular origin rose to a middle class profession. This new category, made up by these two sections, was submitted to standards of life and work determined by salary tightening. The analysis of this phenomenon is here carried out taking as a starting point the Confederation of Brazilian Primary Teachers, which, due to the dictatorship's educational reforms, grew numerically and transformed itself into the Confederation of Brazilian Teachers. Owing to this quick and profound transformation, the profession sUFFered, from then on, an identity crisis - moving towards the proletarianization of intellectual practice.
Military dictatorship; Teachers; Unionism