This paper aims at describing how the Administration of Education was tackled between 1983 and 1996 and, as a result of specific demands from the Brazilian educational field, the publishing and recognition of the six-monthly journal, Revista Brasileira de Administração da Educação (RBAE - Brazilian Journal of Education Administration), from the Associação Nacional de Profissionais de Administração da Educação (ANPAE - the National Association for the Administration of Education Professionals), where practical and theoretical issues on education were discussed and presented. Our hypothesis is that this construction was the result of related interests of a group of agents in the educational field, whose specialized professional profile is in accordance with the intellectual autonomy of the discipline. This study refers to Education Administration as an academic discipline, that is, as a project to understand reality and an attempt to both theoretically interpret and practically intervene in education. Furthermore, Education Administration is here considered as a professional specialization with its own values, techniques and methods, and also as a program providing knowledge.
Education administration; Specialized journal; Academic discipline; Educational field