This article uses photographic images to highlight the key role played by the Rio de Janeiro Institute of Education as one of the most significant experiential spaces of the New Education. It deals with a privileged legacy site (Nora, 1993) of this reform movement which, as a centre of excellence in teacher education, served as a point of reference for the whole country throughout the 1930s. The images that were analysed were published by the periodical Arquivos do Instituto de Educação (Archives of the Institute of Education) which was launched in 1934 under the auspices of the Secretariat of Education of the Federal District. This article seeks to surpass the concept of photography as mere illustration for written texts and to regard photography as a historical source that requires a specific theoretical and methodological construction.
photography; legacy; teacher education; Institute of Education
