Evaluation of learning in Sociology discipline for the Complementary Course: reflections based on textbooks from 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

The study analyzed five Sociology textbooks, produced between 1930s and 1940s, in order to apprehend their proposals for learning evaluation. Using content analysis, the objectives, contents and methodologies adopted by these manuals were examined, in view of their possible impacts on the evaluation configuration. The activities contained in these works were also analyzed, as they are important instruments of the evaluation process, in order to classify them according to the intended educational objectives. The results indicate that, given the propaedeutic objective of the teaching of Sociology in the period, the evaluation ended up focusing, primarily, on the sociological literacy of the students, that is, on the assimilation of theoretical-conceptual knowledge of the Social Sciences.

Keywords:
secondary education; history of education; assessment; teaching sociology

Resumo

O estudo analisou cinco manuais escolares de Sociologia, produzidos entre as décadas de 1930 e 1940, visando apreender suas propostas de avaliação das aprendizagens. Utilizando a análise de conteúdo, foram examinados objetivos, conteúdos e metodologias adotados por esses manuais, tendo em vista seus possíveis impactos sobre a configuração da avaliação. Também foram analisadas as atividades constantes em tais obras, por serem instrumentos importantes do processo avaliativo, a fim de classificá-las de acordo com os objetivos educacionais pretendidos. Os resultados apontam que, dado o objetivo propedêutico do ensino de Sociologia no período, a avaliação acabou focando, prioritariamente, na alfabetização sociológica dos estudantes, ou seja, na assimilação de conhecimentos teórico-conceituais das Ciências Sociais.

Palavras-chave:
ensino secundário; história da educação; avaliação; ensino de sociologia

Resumen

El estudio analizó cinco manuales escolares de Sociología, elaborados entre las décadas de 1930 y 1940, con el objetivo de comprender sus propuestas de evaluación del aprendizaje. Utilizando el análisis de contenido, se examinaron los objetivos, contenidos y metodologías adoptadas por estos manuales, teniendo en cuenta sus posibles impactos en la configuración de la evaluación. También se analizaron las actividades presentes en dichas obras, ya que son instrumentos importantes en el proceso de evaluación, con el fin de clasificarlas según los objetivos educativos pretendidos. Los resultados indican que, dada la meta propedéutica de la enseñanza de la Sociología en ese período, la evaluación se centró principalmente en la alfabetización sociológica de los estudiantes, es decir, en la asimilación de conocimientos teórico-conceptuales de las Ciencias Sociales.

Palabras clave:
enseñanza secundaria; historia de la educación; evaluación; enseñanza de sociología

Introduction

Since Sociology returned to the curriculum of Brazilian basic education through Law No. 11,684/2008, after more than 60 years of absence¹ or, in rare situations, optional presence², much has been discussed, in didactic-pedagogical terms, about the objectives, contents and methodologies that should configure the teaching of Sociology in schools. However, with regard to the evaluation of learning, which is one of the fundamental dimensions of the educational process, little has been discussed. At most, we see only works of an essayistic and/or pedagogical nature³, that only incorporate more general notions about evaluation without, however, focusing on the possible specificities that it may acquire in the context of school Sociology.

In order to contribute to overcoming this gap, we have developed, in recent years, some studies that, taking Sociology textbooks as an empirical object of study, seek to understand, through their evaluative proposals, the way in which the evaluation of learning has been configured in this disciplinary context⁴. If, at first, we focus on recent didactic productions⁵, now we seek to direct our gaze to Sociology textbooks that were produced in the first half of the 20^th century, between 1930s and 1940s, a time when Sociology, for the first time, had reached, at the national level, the status of a mandatory subject in the school curriculum⁶.

Analyzing these works with a view to understanding the evaluation of learning in the teaching of Sociology at this time will give us the opportunity to: 1) Know the first experiences related to the evaluation practice in this disciplinary context, identifying approaches, methods and instruments used; 2) to understand the forms of evaluation adopted at the time in their relationship with the educational policies in force.

Our empirical object is a set of Sociology textbooks, consisting of five works published between 1938 and 1940⁷, aimed at secondary education, more precisely, the second year of the Complementary Course, a series in which Sociology was included as a mandatory curricular component. The works are as follows: “I Need Sociology” (Preciso de Sociologia) (1938), by Paulo Augusto; “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia) (1938), by Roberto Lyra; “Practices of Sociology” (Práticas de Sociologia) (1939), by Delgado de Carvalho, “Introduction to Sociology” (Introdução à Sociologia) (1940), by Fernando Mota, and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia) (1940), by Amaral Fontoura (see Figure 1). All these works were fully submitted to content analysis with regard to their didactic-pedagogical aspects, so that we could achieve the forms of learning evaluation that they potentially entailed.

In structural terms, the present work, in addition to this introduction and the final considerations, is structured in three topics: In the first, we present in more detail the theoretical-methodological design of our research; in the second topic, we briefly present the political-economic conjuncture of the 1930s, the period in which the aforementioned manuals were published, highlighting their implications for the educational policies of the time; finally, by scrutinizing the way in which school Sociology is presented in such manuals, we seek to understand how the evaluation of learning was configured in this disciplinary field during the period focused.

Figure 1
Focused Sociology textbook covers

Theoretical-methodological design of the research

In our research, based on the reflections of some important references in the field of education (Luckesi, 2011; Lebanese, 2006; Tyler, 1978; Bloom et al., 1983), we sought to synthesize, only for analytical purposes, without any pedagogical pretension, a definition for the evaluation of learning capable of functioning as a conceptual instrument that would enable a systematic approach to the empirical object studied: it is a value judgment regarding the development of school learning, with a view to verifying whether the students have achieved certain previously defined educational objectives, operationalized through certain contents and teaching methodologies, in order to guide decision-making by the teacher in the context of the educational process.

This definition has some implications. It indicates that, in order to understand how the evaluation of learning is configured in a given educational context, we must necessarily consider the following interrelated aspects: 1) The educational objectives to be achieved; (2) the disciplinary content to be understood in order to achieve the predefined objectives; and 3) the methodologies that guarantee the didactic transposition of the disciplinary contents, in order to make them effective on learning. In other words, to use the terms of Libâneo (2006), we assume as a presupposition the unity of the structure objectives-contents-methods-evaluation, with these elements being linked to each other by a functional interdependence. From the perspective of evaluation, this unit can be put in these terms: The achievement of predefined objectives is evaluated based on the contents established and the way in which they were didactically worked.

Thus, when we asked ourselves how the proposals for the evaluation of learning that can be extracted from the analysis of the Sociology manuals intended for the Complementary Course are configured, we were led to the need to first answer the following questions: what are the educational objectives that those works link to the teaching of Sociology at this educational level? What are the theoretical, conceptual and thematic contents selected to achieve these objectives? What are the methods and resources used for the didactic transposition of these contents? The answers to these questions provided us with subsidies to understand the various aspects concerning the evaluation of learning that could be subtracted from the didactic guidelines and the various activities directed to students that some of the aforementioned works brought.

Considering that the textbooks analyzed, as well as other human productions, are conditioned by several socio-historical factors, it was necessary that the data evidenced by the questions previously posed be contextualized. In this sense, in the light of textbooks (Bodart & Pires, 2021), we assume the need that, methodologically, our approach to textbooks should consider them in two dimensions, namely: 1) The “internal dimension” of the works, which comprises the entire content of the books and the way they are structured, and 2) the “external dimension” of the works, which concerns the social contexts, political, economic, cultural, educational etc., from which the processes of production, circulation and reception of textbooks take place.

Thus, we seek, on the one hand, through content analysis, in the terms of Bardin (2016), to detect, describe and classify the educational objectives⁸, the programmatic contents⁹, methodologies and didactic resources¹⁰, evaluation proposals and learning verification tools¹¹ contained in the five Sociology manuals, published between 1930 and 1940, which make up the empirical corpus of our research. On the other hand, supported by historical bibliography and legislative documents on Brazilian education referring to the period of publication of these works, we seek to contextualize them in order to give meaning to the data extracted from them.

Brazilian education in the political-economic conjuncture of the 1930s

In the 1930s, Brazil faced severe political and economic turmoil. With the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929, a phase of great global depression began, which severely affected the Brazilian economy, which was still predominantly agrarian (Furtado, 2005). This situation exacerbated already existing political and social tensions in the country, which culminated in what became known as the “Revolution of 1930”, a coup d'état that resulted in the rise of Getúlio Vargas to power (Fausto, 1997).

This new government, of a provisional nature, soon sought to implement reforms and measures aimed at confronting the economic crisis and political instability. In this sense, in economic terms, in contrast to the agro-export model in force until then, a national-developmentalist model anchored in industrialization is outlined. With regard to the political dimension, there is the emergence of an authoritarian and centralizing line on the part of this government, which began to act by decrees, implementing significant changes in the governmental structure, labor laws, the economy, and also in the educational sector (Fausto, 1997; Romanelli, 1986).

Particularly with regard to education, Vargas saw it as a strategic tool capable of promoting his political, economic and social goals for the country. In political terms, education was directed to promote social cohesion, reinforce national identity, and shape citizenship according to the nationalist values assumed by its government (Brito, 2006). In view of the new economic interests centered on the country's industrialization process, education should also focus on the training of qualified labor to meet the new demands of the emerging industry and, in this way, prepare individuals to contribute to the processes of modernization of Brazilian society (Romanelli, 1986). All of this was achieved through a set of reforms in the country's education system, which ultimately made it possible for the state to centralize and control education.

Here, it is worth noting that these reforms took place in a context marked by an intense clash between different perspectives of education. Since the first decade of the twentieth century, Brazil had been experiencing what Nagle (2006, p. 285) called “enthusiasm for education”, that is, the belief that the diffusion of instruction would be “[...] the key to the solution of all social, economic, political and other problems”¹². In this context, we can identify, in the light of the aforementioned author, at least two striking positions: on the one hand, we have the intellectuals who defend what can be understood as the model of the “traditional school” and, on the other, the intellectuals linked to the ideals of the New School (Escola Nova), interested not only in the diffusion of schooling, but mainly in the remodeling of institutions and the school curriculum.

Based on Xavier (2014), we can say that the traditional school model, among other aspects, can be characterized by administrative centralization, standardization and naturalization of curriculum, aiming at cultural homogenization. The New School (Escola Nova), on the other hand, was configured as an alternative model, both with regard to school organization, in which the autonomy of the school and its agents was defended, and with regard to its curricular structure, which considered everything from the individual characteristics of the students to the social context in which they found themselves, which implied the reorganization of teaching contents and the development of new learning methodologies.

From this clash between educational perspectives, the traditional school model prevails in the context of the provisional government of Vargas, despite having maintained some dialogue with intellectuals of the New School (Escola Nova) (Cunha, 2011). On this subject, the following statement by the New School (Escola Nova) intellectual Anísio Teixeira is quite suggestive:

The country began the journey of 30 with a real program of educational reform. In revolutions, as in wars, one knows, however, how they begin, but one does not know how they end.

The first phase of that day was characterized by constructive impetus and a singular effort for the recovery of the school [...].

In a second phase, reaction and a confused traditionalism crept in [...]. The defensive state of mind that took hold of Brazilian society interrupted that renewing impetus. [...] There was a kind of indiscriminate free pass for anything that was or was labeled traditional, and a vigorous hostility to everything that was or seemed to be new (Teixeira, 1956, p. 13)¹³.

Among the educational reforms of the Vargas Era, we are specifically interested, for the purposes of our research, the first one that was constituted from the Ministry of Education and Public Health, recently created through Decree No. 19,402 of 1930. We are referring to the so-called Francisco Campos Reform, which bore precisely the name of the prime minister to occupy the portfolio. This reform, according to Saviani (2021), consisted of seven decrees: 1) Decree No. 19,850 of 1931, which creates the National Council of Education; 2) Decree No. 19,851 of 1931, which provides for the organization of higher education in Brazil and adopts the university regime; 3) Decree No. 19,852 (1931), which provides for the organization of the University of Rio de Janeiro; 4) Decree No. 19,890 (1931), which provides for the organization of secondary education; 5) Decree No. 19,941 of 1931, which provides for religious instruction in primary, secondary and normal courses; 6) Decree No. 20,158 of 1931, which organizes commercial education, regulates the profession of accountant and provides other provisions; and 7) Decree No. 21,241 (1932), which consolidates the provisions on the organization of secondary education.

Taken together, these decrees completely changed the face of national education. According to the elucidative words of Romanelli (1986, p. 131, emphasis added), the teaching that existed until then, in general, “[...] It had never been organized on the basis of a national system. What existed were the state systems, without articulation with the central system, alien, therefore, to a national education policy”. The author also recalls that “[...] all the reforms that preceded the renewal movement, when carried out by the central power, were limited almost exclusively to the Federal District, which presented them as a 'model' to the States, without, however, obliging them to adopt them”. With the Francisco Campos Reform, “[...] It was the first time that a reform had profoundly affected the structure of education and, importantly, it was for the first time imposed on the entire national territory”¹⁴.

Specifically regarding the modifications that this reform made in secondary education, what can be perceived, based on the analyses of Piletti (1987), is the complete transformation of this educational level in several aspects, among which we highlight: 1) The extension of its duration - of five or six years¹⁵ to seven years; 2) its subdivision into two cycles - the fundamental one, lasting five years, and the complementary one, comprising the last two years; 3) the restructuring of its curriculum both with regard to its organization - which necessarily became serial - and in relation to the definition of the curricular components of each of the grades, with an increase in the participation of disciplines in the areas of mathematics, science and social studies.

Following the centralizing direction of the other government policies in force, this reformulation of secondary education came to define, according to Romanelli (1986), the same curriculum, the same programs, the same methods and the same evaluation criteria and test systems for all schools in the national territory. In fact, in article 10 of Decree No. 19,890 (1931), there is the following determination: “The programs of secondary education, as well as the instructions on teaching methods, shall be issued by the Ministry of Education and Public Health”. In the sequence of articles ranging from 35 to 43, the same decree carries out an extensive and detailed systematization of the way in which the exams should be applied throughout all grades of secondary education.

From the explanatory memorandum that was presented by Minister Francisco Campos in defense of the restructuring of secondary education, and which is attached to the aforementioned decree, we can highlight a suggestive speech that indicates the meaning of the intended reform:

As a rule, secondary education has been regarded among us as a simple instrument for preparing candidates for higher education, thus neglecting its eminently educational function, which consists precisely in the development of the faculties of appreciation, judgment, and judgment, essential to all branches of human activity, and particularly in the training of the intellect to put problems in their exact terms and to seek their most appropriate solutions (Campos, 1931, p. 6949)¹⁶.

As can be seen in this passage, the restructuring of secondary education was ultimately intended to redirect its educational objectives, so as to make it a formative space of its own character, not just a passage course whose ultimate purpose would be the preparation of subjects for higher education. The extension of time, the division into two cycles and the reorganization of the curricular components of secondary school aimed precisely at its reorientation in this direction. In practical terms, we would have a fundamental cycle, aimed at the general formation of the subjects, in order to enable them to respond to the demands that were placed on them in the course of daily life, and a complementary cycle, this one, yes, aimed at preparing students for the exams aimed at entering higher education. In the words of Francisco Campos:

The course was divided into two parts, the first of five years, which is the common and fundamental part, and the second, of two years, constituting the necessary adaptation of the candidates to the higher education courses and divided into three sections. These sections will consist of subjects grouped according to the student's professional orientation. In order not to take specialization too far, however, there will be subjects common to all three, precisely aimed at general culture, a necessary terrain for the approximation of men, whose professional paths already tend to distance them (Campos, 1931, p. 6951)¹⁷.

The three sections into which the Complementary Course was divided were structured, in curricular terms, according to the intended university career. Thus, we had: 1) a section for candidates to the Legal course; 2) a section for applicants to Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry courses; and 3) a section for applicants to Engineering and Architecture courses.

It was among the disciplines common to the three sections of the Complementary Course that Sociology was inserted, precisely, in the curriculum of the second year. Together with other disciplines of the humanities, Sociology was intended for the general cultural formation of students, which, in view of the governmental interests with regard to the suppression of social conflicts, was in the sense of fostering social cohesion based on values concerning the national reality. The way in which school Sociology was aligned with such interests is an issue that will be addressed in the next topic, when we discuss the objectives of this discipline in the period in focus. For now, in order to glimpse the reasons that led to the inclusion of Sociology in the secondary school curriculum, we can say, along with Meucci (2001, p. 155), that “[...] Sociology emerged at a time when we wanted, at the same time, to recognize the social reality of the country and to constitute the nation”. In this sense, “[...] Discipline had in this period, here among us, the mission of redefining new conditions for the organization and progress of the nation”¹⁸.

However, because it was included only in complementary courses, it is understood that Sociology assumes, along with the other disciplines at this level, mainly a propaedeutic function. In fact, it was a subject charged in the Qualification Competition for higher schools, as seen in item 25 of Circular No. 1,200 (1937), of the National Department of Education (Departamento Nacional de Educação), being present in the selection tests of all the schools mentioned in this document: Schools of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry; Law school; schools of Engineering, Architecture, Industrial Chemistry and Agronomy. This propaedeutic character of the teaching of Sociology will be discussed in detail in the following section.

The evaluation of learning in the context of school Sociology

As mentioned in our theoretical-methodological design, we start from the assumption that the analysis of the evaluation of learning, in a given disciplinary context, cannot disregard the educational objectives, the programmatic contents and the teaching methodologies involved, given the functional interdependence between these elements. Thus, when investigating the five Sociology manuals published between the 1930s and 1940s, seeking to understand the evaluative proposals that can be deduced from them, we also had to examine the objectives, contents and methodologies assumed by these works.

It is worth noting that, in order to make sense of the data collected on these elements, we sought to contextualize them in the light of the educational legislation and curriculum documents in vogue at the time. Such contextualization occurred not only because these documents can signal educational trends of the period that, perhaps, those works may have reproduced, but, more concretely, because, as we have seen previously, the curriculum, the course programs, the teaching methodologies and the evaluation system were, to a large extent, determined, in a centralized way, from the Ministry of Education and Public Health.

Therefore, we will also consider the following documents in the following analyses: 1) Decree No. 19,890 (1931), which provides for the organization of secondary education; 2) Decree No. 21,241 (1932), which consolidates the provisions on the organization of secondary education; 3) Ministerial Ordinance s.n. (1936), which establishes the programs of the complementary course; 4) Circular No. 1,200 (1937), which gives instructions on the process of registration for the Qualification Competition for higher schools, including defining the way in which the exams should be conducted; 5) Circular No. 3,344 (1937), which complements the provisions of the previous circular, detailing the essential subject matter of the syllabi of the disciplines on which the tests of the aforementioned competition must be addressed, in addition to adding new instructions for carrying out these tests.

The educational objectives whose effectiveness is sought to be evaluated

No educational action of an intentional nature is established without defining, from the outset, objectives to be achieved in formative terms. This is because, according to the understanding of Castanho (2011), the educational objectives are, precisely, the results sought by the educational action. In other words, it is the cognitive, affective and psychomotor changes, to use the terminology of Bloom et al. (1983), that are expected to produce in individuals at the end of an educational process.

In this context, recalling the words of Tyler (1978, p. 98-99), “[...] The evaluation process essentially consists of determining the extent to which the educational objectives are actually being achieved by the curriculum, curriculum and teaching”¹⁹. That said, we ask ourselves: What are the educational objectives attributed to Sociology, in the context of focused textbooks, whose scope is sought to be evaluated?

To answer this question, it is essential that we pay attention to the curricular context in which Sociology was inserted. We have already said that, in accordance with the provisions of articles 4 and 5 of Decree No. 19,890 (1931), and consolidated in articles 4 and 5 of Decree No. 21,241 (1932), Sociology became part of the set of disciplines that made up the curriculum of the Complementary Course, which was primarily aimed at preparing students for admission to higher education, but he also had a certain concern with developing a general culture in these subjects. In other words, we are faced with two general educational objectives, one of a “propaedeutic” character and the other directed to “cultural formation”. Now, let's see how these objectives were configured in the scope of school Sociology, as it was structured in the five works focused. To do so, we examine the data in Chart 1:

Chart 1
The propaedeutic objective of school teaching in Sociolog

In relation to the propaedeutic objective of the school teaching of Sociology, it is relevant to note, at the outset, that four of the five textbooks analyzed expressly assumed this orientation through several highlights on their covers and/or title pages, which indicated the course for which they were intended and/or their conformity to the official programs. Among these highlights, it is worth mentioning the importance attributed both to Circular No. 1,200/1937, which included Sociology among the disciplines that would compose the exams of the Qualification Contest to higher schools, and to Circular No. 3,344 (1937), which established the essential subjects to be charged in these exams, selected from the Official Program of the disciplines contained in the Ministerial Ordinance s.n. (1936). Both circulars ended up establishing the guidelines that guided the composition of the analyzed Sociology textbooks, which, as they were aimed at the Complementary Course, aimed to prepare students for entry into higher education.

In this sense, it is also worth mentioning that the “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) manual goes so far as to compose a specific section with the following topics that reproduce excerpts from the aforementioned circulars: “Official Program” and “Instructions Regarding Sociology Exams”. In the same section, there is also the topic “Advice on the Preparation of the Sociological Dissertation”, which is a part of the written test of the Habilitation Competition. In addition, it reproduces, in full, some Sociology tests charged in this contest, which also occurs in the Sociology Program (Programa de Sociologia) manual.

The propaedeutic orientation of the manuals analyzed was not only one of their aspects, but the sine qua non condition of their existence. In fact, observing the table above, it is easy to deduce that the production of these manuals was entirely conditioned by the role that they should play in the formative context of the Complementary Course, that is, to prepare students for the Qualification Competition. This conditioning was significant to the point of determining, through the official programs, all the content of these works, which explains the complaints, verified in the manuals “Practices of Sociology” and “Program of Sociology”, made by their authors, regarding the limitation and/or inadequacy of the fixed contents, but which, despite this, they had to follow.

In addition, thinking only about the preparation of students for exams, there are manuals that even limit what is expected of students in cognitive terms: In “I Need Sociology” (Preciso de Sociologia), there are indications that seem to point to a learning based on the simple memorization of content - the author says that the “[...] It is essential that the student prepares himself, studying and remembering, thinking and rethinking the subjects [...]”; something similar can also be seen in “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia), whose goal seems to be to make students erudite, something in the terms of what Almeida and Grubisich (2011) understand as “puffy erudition”, that is, a learning that is based on the assimilation of a large amount of information, even the most superfluous - in the manual in question, its author informs that he dedicated ample space to disputes in the sociological field, “[...] in which the struggles of the schools are fought, presenting and characterizing the most exciting characters”²⁰.

As for the general educational objective aimed at cultural formation, in the case of the teaching of Sociology, it follows, according to what was verified in the manuals analyzed, in the sense of leading students to a greater understanding of the Brazilian reality and its problems. In this sense, the following consideration in the work “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia) is suggestive: “To know the social problems of Brazil is a work of Sociology and it is also a duty of patriotism. To develop a program of living Sociology, such as the one we have described, is above all to do a work of social solidarity and healthy nationalism” (Fontoura, 1940, p. 17)²¹.

This direction given to the teaching of Sociology was entirely aligned with the interests of the government then in force, which, as we have already said, aimed to overcome the social conflicts that marked the period, valuing national identity and the constitution of a citizenship based on nationalist values. The observation of this fact can also be found in the manual “Practices of Sociology” (Práticas de Sociologia), through the following criticism made by its author to the Official Program of the discipline: “The program aimed to make Sociology a normative science, that is, to give it a mission of moral and civic instruction” (Carvalho, 1939, p. 5)²².

Chart 2 shows some excerpts that indicate the way in which Sociology was presented in the five manuals analyzed. We believe that there are elements that allow us to deduce the way in which the two general educational objectives exposed, propaedeutic and cultural training, were operationalized from the scientific aspects and the potential application of the area.

Chart 2
Presentation of Sociology

From these presentations of Sociology, it is possible to highlight the following characteristic aspects of this discipline: It is a science 1) that enables the study of social facts and, in this sense, the discovery of the general laws that govern its evolution; 2) that it produces a type of knowledge that is superior to common sense in terms of reliability, since it is positive knowledge; 3) that seeks to understand, interpret and discuss social problems; 4) that it is aimed at predicting and guiding social reality, with a view to improving the conditions of life in society.

By characterizing Sociology in these terms, the focused textbooks make clear, first, their interest in making students perceive the scientific character of this discipline. To this end, they will systematically mobilize the theoretical perspectives and the conceptual framework of this scientific field, which suggests the existence of a concern, with regard to the training of students, with what we call “sociological literacy”, that is, with the academic mastery of the analytical instruments of the Social Sciences. In view of the subject of Sociology established by the Official Program and the orientation of the tests concerning this discipline within the scope of the Qualification Competition, both predominantly theoretical-conceptual, it is seen that sociological literacy is configured, in this context, as the propaedeutic objective attributed to Sociology.

Secondly, some presentations show that it is also important to lead students to perceive the potential applications of the theoretical-conceptual apparatus of Sociology in the investigation of problems concerning social life. The intention seems to be to endow them with a “sociological spirit” or, to use Mills' (1982) famous expression, to develop in them the “sociological imagination”, that is, the ability to understand the structural relations that define social reality. In this sense, some manuals, when discussing certain social themes, will do so anchored in empirical data, some of them referring to the Brazilian reality, seeking to analyze them from a sociological perspective. In this sense, this competence is aligned with the objective related to the cultural formation of the students.

The contents that constitute the material elements of the evaluation

The definition of educational objectives is only the starting point of educational action, and it is also necessary to select contents that can operationalize them. In this sense, the contents are the concrete basis through which the educational action can be processed. And this is because, as Piletti (2004, p. 90) reminds us, “[...] learning only takes place on a certain content [...]”, since “[...] Whoever learns, learns something”²³.

From this it follows that the evaluation of learning, in the search to verify whether certain educational objectives have been achieved, ends up focusing precisely on the contents on which they were processed. Therefore, in order to understand the proposals for the evaluation of learning that can be deduced from the Sociology textbooks analyzed here, we also need to investigate what were the contents, defined in such works, for this discipline.

Initially, it is important to remember that, according to the legislative provisions for secondary education in the period in question, all content programs for the grades that make up this educational level would be established by the Ministry of Education and Public Health. In fact, for the Complementary Course, in which the discipline Sociology was inserted, the disciplinary programs were established from the Ministerial Ordinance s.n. (1936).

In this legal document, with regard to the Sociology program, which was the same for the three sections of the Complementary Course, there is an extensive list of 44 items, subdivided as follows: 1) “Introduction” (1 to 8) - brings points related to the presentation of Sociology as a field of knowledge, focusing, among other aspects, on its object of study, its methods, its history and some of the major schools of sociological thought; 2) “Social Origins” (9 to 16) - concentrates topics related to “primitive social groups”, ranging from their formation process to some of their social institutions; and 3) “Social Structure” (17 to 44) - basically, it focuses on aspects concerning modern societies, focusing on topics such as family, politics, law, economy, education, Church, State, etc.

It was based on the syllabi of the disciplines of the Complementary Course, established by the aforementioned ministerial ordinance, that the essential subjects on which the tests of the Qualification Competition for higher schools should be addressed, were later defined by Circular No. 3,344 (1937). Specifically, for the Sociology exams, seven thematic axes were defined: 1) Sociology; 2) Formation of social groups; 3) Family; 4) Education; 5) Economy; 6) Politics; 7) Church and State.

Considering the fact that, as we were able to demonstrate in the previous topic, the five Sociology textbooks analyzed had as their main objective the preparation of students for the Habilitation Exam, we sought to verify if their contents converged with the essential subject defined for the Sociology exams of this exam. Thus, when we cross-reference the programmatic contents of each of the aforementioned Sociology textbooks with the essential subject matter of the programmatic contents of this discipline, as seen in Circular No. 3,344 (1937), we arrive at Chart 3:

Chart 3
Cross-referencing of the thematic axes present in Circular No. 3,344/1937 with the contents contained in the Sociology textbooks

It can be seen, in general, that all the textbooks analyzed present, to some extent, contents aligned with the essential subject of Sociology charged in the tests of the Habilitation Competition. However, some distinctions deserve to be highlighted: This alignment is quite accentuated, especially in the manuals “I Need Sociology” (Preciso de Sociologia), “Introduction to Sociology” (Introdução à Sociologia) and “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia), which are in fact limited to the topics of the essential subject, contained in Circular No. 3,344 (1937); on the other hand, the manual “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia) goes further, as it strictly follows, in all its completeness, the program of the discipline established by the Ministerial Ordinance s.n. (1936); compared to the other manuals analyzed, “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia) is the one that most clashes, in terms of selection and organization of the content, considering the programs established in the aforementioned legislative documents, since it focused on the presentation of reference authors in the area of Social Sciences and their analytical perspectives. In a way, this direction ended up prolonging the discussion on sociological schools, which comprises the first part of the Official Program and the first thematic axis of the essential subject for the Qualification Competition. With regard to the subjects indicated in the other six axes, the manual does not dedicate any particular chapter to them, but only makes sparse and unsystematic references to some of them in the midst of the expositions on the contributions of certain authors in the field.

A point that is important to highlight in relation to the content of the aforementioned works is their theoretical-conceptual character, basically focused on sociological literacy, which, as we have seen, is the propaedeutic training expected from the teaching of Sociology. Thus, as can be deduced from the table above, sociological literacy involves, among other things, knowing and understanding the history of Sociology, its object, its methods, its main theoretical perspectives, its main thinkers and its themes of interest.

Despite this predominantly theoretical-conceptual bias, we noticed that in three works, “Introduction to Sociology” (Introdução à Sociologia), “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), there was a significant mobilization of empirical contents, including those related to the Brazilian reality. In this sense, the last work stands out, because its author not only brought an expressive set of data about Brazil, articulating them to the theoretical issues around the social themes focused, but also included, as appendices, two complete empirical studies, developed by students of the complementary course in which he taught. The following words of the author help us to understand his intent in defining these contents: “The teaching of Sociology is either active, alive, or not the teaching of Sociology. Of course, the teacher's theoretical expositions are indispensable. But alongside them there must be fieldwork, student research, inquiry, monograph” (Fontoura, 1940, p. 16)²⁴. We can say that this type of orientation aims, ultimately, at the development of the sociological imagination in students, which is, as we have seen, the objective assumed by the teaching of Sociology with regard to cultural formation.

Such conformations of content, verified in the works mentioned above, seem to mirror, precisely, the opposition between a traditional curriculum, in which the program has an intellectualist character, marked by a long list of subjects, and the curriculum as it was conceived by the pedagogical renewal movement embraced by New School (Escola Nova), in which the program must be constituted in articulation with the experiences of the student (Cunha, 1994). Although some books seek to establish this articulation, it ends up being stifled in the midst of an extensive theoretical-conceptual and encyclopedic exposition. This was precisely one of the points criticized by Carvalho (1939), in the preamble of his manual, regarding the provisions of the program of the essential matter established by Circular No. 3,344 (1937): “The program, too extensive, covered subjects, for the most part, foreign to Sociology (law, political science, political economy, etc.)”²⁵. In a similar vein, Fontoura's (1940, p. 15) criticism of the complete program of the discipline, defined by the Ministerial Ordinance s/n, of March 17^th, 1936, also follows. In the text that precedes the exposition of contents in his manual, he tells us that the program defined for the discipline of Sociology “[...] it is sometimes long-winded, it gets lost in matters of secondary importance”²⁶. In spite of these criticisms, both of them, as well as the other authors of the manuals analyzed, followed the intellectualist program defined in those curricular documents, confirming the predominance of a curriculum with a traditional structure.

The ways of teaching that guide the ways of evaluating

The knowledge and practices of a given science, as it is presented in the academic field, cannot simply be taken to the school environment and passed on to students without harming learning, in view of the particularities of this context. In order to be configured as school content, such knowledge and practices must go through a process of didactic transposition. In other words, to use Chevallard's (1998) terms, “wise knowledge” must become “teachable knowledge”. In this sense, several didactic procedures are undertaken, such as: a) The selection and organization of relevant subjects in a logical and progressive structure, considering the possible paths for their learning; b) the linguistic simplification of the content in order to make it more understandable, which means moving away from the academic-scientific language, which is quite hermetic, towards a more colloquial language, close to the daily lives of students; c) the mobilization of didactic resources - such as images, diagrams, graphs, etc. - that are capable of giving greater intelligibility to subjects with a high degree of abstraction; d) the concretization and contextualization of the contents, transforming abstract notions and concepts into concrete examples, connected to everyday situations.

By observing the ways in which the contents of the focused Sociology textbooks were configured, we can highlight some methodological tendencies that they presented.

Regarding the selection and organisation of content, four of the five works analyzed, “I Need Sociology” (Preciso de Sociologia), “Introduction to Sociology” (Introdução à Sociologia), “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia), and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), dedicate their initial chapters to the presentation of Sociology as a scientific field, highlighting its history, its object of study, its methods, and some of its main theoretical perspectives. In the remaining chapters, these works focus on the exposition of the sociological approach in relation to certain social processes and institutions. In relation to this pattern, only one work proved to be dissonant, “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia), insofar as it extended the exposition of the scientific field of Sociology throughout all chapters, emphasizing the presentation of authors and theoretical perspectives, to the detriment of any systematic presentation of sociological themes. Still with regard to the organization of the works, it is important to emphasize that all of them established a theoretical-conceptual framework as a methodological starting point for the discussion of the various subjects focused on them (see Figure 2).

Figure 2
Theoretical-conceptual starting point in “I Need Sociology”

Regarding the language used in the presentation of the contents, we noticed that, in general, all the works presented, some to a greater extent, some to a lesser extent, the adequacy of their texts, in linguistic terms, to the non-specialist audience for which they were intended. The following are some indications in this regard: a) The choice of a more usual vocabulary instead of technical-scientific jargon predominated. Even in situations where the use of more specialized terms proved to be unavoidable, such as in dealing with scientific concepts and notions, these were usually followed by definitions; b) the sentences and paragraphs were constructed, in most of the works, in a very concise way, avoiding complex syntaxes, which allows for greater fluidity of reading and, consequently, facilitates the understanding of the texts. In these two categories, the works “Introduction to Sociology” (Introdução à Sociologia), “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), and “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) stand out (see Figure 3). On the other hand, the textbooks “I Need Sociology” (Preciso de Sociologia) and, more notably, “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia) showed little concern in relation to these aspects, perhaps due to their excesses of eruditism: For example, in the former, one sees too much concern with the etymology of words, while in the latter, one finds a markedly epistemological content (see Figure 4). Such characteristics contribute to making these works relatively more hermetic than the previous ones.

Figure 3
Language adopted in “Sociology Practice”

Figure 4
Language adopted in “Notions of Sociology”

Regarding the mobilization of didactic resources in the structuring of contents, it is important to highlight that, given the editorial limitations and the still incipient dichoctic-pedagogical development in Brazil at the time, the textbooks had little diversity of didactic resources. Looking at the works analyzed, it is possible to see basically the following elements: a) Accentuated use of bold and italics in the highlighting, for example, of keywords, concepts and authors; b) use of enumerations, diagrams and tables to facilitate the organization and synthesis of ideas and to topify important points; c) punctual presence of tables and graphs for data presentation (see Figure 5); d) adoption of figures, to represent ideas, and maps, to locate data; e) use of images of thinkers in the field of Social Sciences; f) content fixation activities. The first three elements were found in all the works, even if in different measures. Item “f” is found in only two works, namely, “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia) and “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia). On the other hand, items “c”, “d” and “e” were the most uncommon, the first two being identified only in the manual “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), and the last one only in the work “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia).

Figure 5
Graphic present in “Sociology Program”

Regarding the specificity and contextualisation of the content, As explained above, all the works analyzed excelled in a theoretical-conceptual approach, even when the focus of the exhibition was themes related to specific social phenomena. And this was generally to the detriment of empirical exemplifications that would be able to contextualize and give greater concreteness to the subjects addressed. In any case, among the works analyzed, it is possible to perceive in the “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Introduction to Sociology” (Introdução à Sociologia) a certain effort to concretize and contextualize the subjects addressed, either by resorting to hypothetical situations or by mobilizing data about the national and international reality (see Figure 6). On the contrary, it is observed that such an effort is practically non-existent in the manual “Notions of Sociology” (Noções de Sociologia), which, by focusing on the presentation of major references of the Social Sciences and their theoretical perspectives, completely neglects the mobilization of this corpus in the understanding of empirical problems.

Figure 6
Contextualization and implementation in “Introduction to Sociology”

Taken as a whole, the five Sociology textbooks focused on the methodological choices they made, starting from a theoretical-conceptual approach to the contents, with little or, in some cases, no contextualization and concreteness of the subjects dealt with - which reverberated in the meager mobilization of didactic resources, especially those aimed at the exposition of empirical data - show that, in fact, its central concern was with sociological literacy, to the detriment of the development of students' sociological imagination.

Trends in the evaluation of learning in the teaching of Sociology

Previously, we said that Decree No. 19,890 (1931), consolidated by Decree No. 21,241 (1932), determined practically all dimensions of the secondary school curriculum, starting with its structure, passing through the objectives, contents, and teaching methodologies, to the systematization of evaluation processes. In this last aspect, specifically in relation to the Complementary Course, there is the establishment of a broad system of exams, consisting of arguments, practical assignments and written tests. In detail, for a subject, there would be: a) Monthly, a note related to the argument or practical work; (b) a partial written test every two months; c) annually, for the first grade, there would be an oral final exam and, for the second grade, the final exam would correspond to the one applied by the higher education institutes in which the students intended to enroll, this evaluation consisting of two stages, namely, a vague exam and an argument. In view of this reality, it is necessary to understand the following words of Romanelli (1986, p. 137) in relation to the implications of the restructuring of secondary education, forwarded by the aforementioned decrees: “[...] It can be seen, therefore, that it was not a system of education, but a system of tests and examinations”.

In this context, the evaluation was limited to the pure measurement of the knowledge acquired by the students, with a view to its classification, selection and certification. Thus, in the light of Luckesi (2011), we can say that the logic of the “pedagogy of the exam” predominated, in which the concerns with the development of learning were placed in the background in favor of the overvaluation of the exams, taken solely as an instrument for the approval or failure of the subjects.

And this is easily verified in the structuring of the Sociology textbooks analyzed, firstly, because, as we have already observed, because they were intended for the Complementary Course, whose objective was to prepare students for the tests of the Qualification Competition, such works structured their contents based on the essential subjects charged in these tests. Secondly, when we observe, specifically, the only two works that contained activities for the exercise and/or verification of learning, “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), we realize that, in both, these elements were fully aligned, in terms of form and content, with the provisions of both Circular No. 1,200 (1937), which established some standards for the performance of the tests of the Qualification Competition, as well as in Circular No. 3,344 (1937), which added other instructions for the development of these tests. Not only did those works contain activities structured in terms of these normative documents, but they even reproduced, in full, some of the Sociology tests included in the exams for admission to higher education courses.

For the Sociology exams of the Habilitation Competition, according to the aforementioned circulars, we had the following structure: The tests would consist of two in number, the first consisting of a vague exam, consisting of 20 questions, formulated in order to allow concise answers, and a theme for the dissertation; the second test would be an oral argument. Observing the sections of activities contained in each of the two manuals mentioned above, we noticed that they were structured according to this evaluative standard. In the work “Practices of Sociology” (Práticas de Sociologia), there are the sections “Topics to Discuss” and “Dissertation Plans”, while in the work “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), there are the sections “Topics for Discussion” and “Social Inquiry to Be Carried Out”. The first sections of both works present open questions that, for the most part, can be answered more succinctly. In relation to the second sections, what is perceived are proposals of themes on which an essay elaboration is required. In the “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), in addition to the sections indicated, there is also, in the form of an appendix, a “Sociology Test Model”, consisting of questions of a lacunar type, which, in formal terms, differs from the standard of tests of the Qualification Competition, although it contemplates the essential subjects defined for this exam.

When we analyze the set of authorial activities, contained in the two manuals mentioned above, in order to understand what they sought to exercise and, ultimately, to evaluate, with regard to the learning of Sociology, we came across the following scenario (see Graph 1): Of a total of 447 authorial activities, 83% were centered on historical, theoretical-conceptual and methodological aspects of the Social Sciences - that is, focused on sociological literacy (see Figure 7) - while only 17% requested some kind of application of the instruments of these sciences for the understanding of social reality - indicating a certain concern with the development of the sociological imagination (see Figure 8).

Graph 1
Orientation of the authorial activities present in the manuals “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia).

Figure 7
Activities aimed at exercising/verifying sociological literacy.

Figure 8
Activities aimed at the exercise/verification of the sociological imagination

Considering the educational objectives, the contents and the methodology that were assumed by the manuals “Practices of Sociology” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Program of Sociology” (Programa de Sociologia), it is possible to understand this predominant orientation of the activities contained in them: As the main objective of the teaching of Sociology in the Complementary Course was to prepare students for the Qualification Contest to higher schools, these manuals ended up being guided by the official program of the discipline especially because of the essential subject of this program defined for such a competition, which was extremely theoretical-conceptual, being aimed at a learning that was defined more by the assimilation of knowledge than by its application - in the case of the teaching of Sociology, more by sociological literacy than by the development of the sociological imagination. This meant that, methodologically, those manuals, even when they focused on a specific social phenomenon, took as a starting point - and often also as an end point - a theoretical-conceptual cut. Since the content taught is the one that must be evaluated and the way of teaching is the standard that defines the way of evaluating, we thus arrive at the predominantly theoretical-conceptual direction of the activities posed, precisely because they had as a priority focus the sociological literacy of the students.

If we direct our gaze to the set of questions extracted from the Sociology tests of the Habilitation Competition, which were reproduced in both works, “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia), we found a similar trend: Out of a total of 168 activities, 98% focused on sociological literacy, while only 2% focused on the verification of sociological imagination (see Graph 2).

Graph 2
Orientation of the activities arising from the Qualification Contest reproduced in the manuals “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia)

If, on the one hand, these data demonstrate that, in fact, the “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia) manuals built their evaluation proposals following the trend established by the standard imposed for the Sociology tests of the Habilitation Contest, on the other hand, they also reveal a percentage discrepancy that cannot be disregarded: among the authorial activities, the number of activities aimed at verifying the sociological imagination is higher than that found among the activities arising from the tests of the aforementioned competition, respectively, 17% and 2%.

In order to understand this discrepancy, we must remember that the authors of these works presented divergences in relation to the extent and inadequacy of the subject matter established in the official curriculum documents. Probably, in order to deal with the excessively theoretical-conceptual and encyclopedic program defined for the discipline of Sociology, they chose to articulate, even if in a very punctual way, this set of knowledge to concrete situations, mobilizing empirical data and examples of social facts. With this, they aimed to lead students to reflect on society using sociological knowledge in a more practical way. This can be understood as a reflection of the new didactic-pedagogical tendencies that circulated in that period, driven by the New School (Escola Nova), which moved away from an educational practice centered on passive, intellectualistic and verbalist learning towards an approach that values active learning, which articulates disciplinary knowledge to the daily life of students (Cunha, 1994).

Thus, it makes sense that, in the context of the two manuals mentioned above, there is a significant concern with the students ability to read social reality, that is, with the development of their sociological imagination, in the activities aimed at the exercise and/or verification of learning. Of course, this orientation was not necessarily in disagreement with the objectives established by the legislation for the teaching of Sociology, since one of them was, precisely, the general cultural formation of the students. However, it proved to be out of step with the direction taken by the tests of the Qualification Competition, consisting predominantly of questions of a historical and theoretical-conceptual nature concerning the sociological field, since they were aimed at verifying the intellectual formation of the candidates.

In any case, even with this relative mismatch, the Sociology textbooks could not fail to meet, or even relegate to the background, the priority objective set for the teaching of Sociology in the Complementary Course, which was the propaedeutic training of students. For this reason, the space that these works dedicated, in their exercise sections, to the verification of the sociological imagination was relatively small, even if it proved to be larger if compared to what was reserved for it in the tests of the Qualification Contest.²⁷ Let's see the breakdown of this in Graph 3 below:

Graph 3
Orientation of activities by section of exercises in the manuals “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia)

With regard to the two sections of exercises contained in the manual “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia), “Topics to Discuss” and “Dissertation Plans”, we see that only 20% of their activities were directed to the sociological imagination. A similar trend is found in the “Topics for Discussion” section of the “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia) manual. However, in this last work, two sections of exercises presented certain particularities. The “Sociology Test Model” section comprises 25 questions, of which 24 focused on historical and theoretical-conceptual knowledge of the Social Sciences, i.e., they were almost entirely focused on sociological literacy (see Figure 9). As we said above, this orientation is connected to the propaedeutic objective, with a theoretical-conceptual basis, established for the teaching of Sociology with a view to the Habilitation Contest. Now, in a totally opposite direction, we have the “Social Survey to be Conducted” section, which, despite encompassing an extremely small number of activities, only three research scripts, all of which were dedicated to the development of the sociological imagination, which is aligned with the educational objective centered on general cultural formation (see Figure 10).

Figure 9
Activities aimed at the exercise/verification of the sociological literacy

Figure 10
Activities aimed at the exercise/verification of the sociological imagination

Observing the structure of the sections “Sociology Test Model” and “Social Survey to be Conducted”, we believe that their mismatch in relation to the others, with regard to the extremely high indices of their predominant orientations, is due, to a certain extent, to the types of activities they contain: The first section involves gaping closed questions; the second, on the other hand, is composed of scripts for social research. Some observations made by Morales (2003) regarding the potentialities and limits of each type of activity can help us understand how this variable corroborated the trends observed in these sections. According to this author, “closed activities” are valid and effective when they are centered on knowledge that can be acquired, mainly, through memorization processes - such as historical facts, theorizations, conceptual definitions, characteristics, etc. However, they are useless when what is sought is to lead students to develop the skills of organizing ideas, applying knowledge, analyzing and evaluating. For this, the “open activities”, especially those that require a longer dissertation elaboration, are the most appropriate. In these terms, it is understandable that the closed questions of the section “Model of Sociology Tests” have been directed, in their almost totality, to the verification of sociological literacy, while the activities proposed in the section “Social Survey to be Carried Out” have focused primarily on the verification of sociological imagination.

Final considerations

The main objective of this research was to understand the evaluation proposals that could be deduced from Sociology textbooks, produced between the 1930s and 1940s, aimed at Complementary Courses. Because we started from the theoretical-methodological assumption of the unity between objectives-content-methodology-evaluation, we achieved results that go beyond the comprehension of only those evaluative proposals, to the extent that they also focus on the other elements of this unit. In summary, the following are the main results of our work:

Observing the educational legislation of the period, we found the existence of two general educational objectives for the Complementary Course, in the curriculum of which Sociology was inserted, one of a “propaedeutic” character, centered on the preparation of students for entry into higher education, and the other directed to the “cultural formation” of these subjects. In this context, we noticed that, in the field of Sociology, such objectives were structured according to the specificities of this disciplinary field, directing, respectively, to “sociological literacy” and to the development of “sociological imagination”.

Among the two general educational objectives mentioned above, the propaedeutic was the one that, in the last instance, defined the essence of the Complementary Course. This, within the scope of the Sociology textbooks analyzed, resulted in the emphasis given to sociological literacy, with implications for: a) The selection of contents - the focus was on the history, theories, concepts and perspectives of the Social Sciences; b) the definition of methodological approaches - a theoretical-conceptual approach predominated to the detriment of contextualizations and concretions anchored in empirical elements; c) the orientation of the evaluative proposals - more concerned with the memorization of knowledge than with its application.

We also noticed that the type of activity can favor certain directions: Closed activities tend to be, for the most part, used to verify sociological literacy; on the other hand, open activities have more potential for the verification of sociological imagination. However, given the propaedeutic bias of the Sociology textbooks analyzed, even in the open activities, the focus on sociological literacy predominated, although not as much as was seen in the closed activities.

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• Romanelli, O. O. (1986). História da educação no Brasil (1930/1973) (8a ed.). Vozes.
• Saviani, D. (2021). História das ideias pedagógicas no Brasil (6a ed.). Autores Associados.
• Schwartzman, S., Bomeny, H. M., & Costa, V. M. (2000). Tempos de Capanema. Paz & Terra.
• Silva, I. L. F. (2010). O ensino das ciências sociais/sociologia no Brasil: histórico e perspectivas. In A. C. Moraes (Ed.), Sociologia: ensino médio (Coleção Explorando o ensino, v. 15, pp. 15-44). Ministério da Educação, Secretaria de Educação Básica.
• Teixeira, A. (1956). A educação e a crise brasileira. Companhia Editora Nacional.
• Tyler, R. W. (1978) Princípios básicos de currículo e ensino (5a ed.). Globo.
• Xavier, L. (2014). A República e o movimento da Educação Nova no Brasil e em Portugal: sujeitos, concepções e experiências. In A. Mourão, & A. Gomes (Coord.), A experiência da primeira república no Brasil e em Portugal (pp. 279-297). Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.

• Note:

  This article is part of the dossier History of Education and the teaching of Social Sciences, whose notice was launched on April 4, 2023.

• Peer review rounds:

  R1: two invitations; two reports received.

• Funding:

  The RBHE has financial support from the Brazilian Society of History of Education (SBHE) and the Editorial Program (Call No. 12/2022) of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

• 1
  Since 1942, when the Capanema Reform (Reforma Capanema) restructured secondary education, eliminating the Complementary Course, in whose curriculum Sociology appeared, this discipline no longer appears on the list of mandatory components of the national school curriculum. This situation only changed 66 years later with Law No. 11,684/2008 (Oliveira, 2013).
• 2
  Machado (1987, p. 133) informs us that between 1961 and 1982, given the autonomy of the federative states in the definition of some complementary and optional components for the secondary school curriculum, according to the provisions of the Laws of Guidelines and Bases of National Education of 1961 and 1971, “[...] Sociology was in some states a subject for which the secondary school could choose”; original quoatation in Portuguese: “[...] a Sociologia era em alguns estados disciplina pela qual a escola secundária poderia optar”. From the beginning of the 1980s to the first decade of the 2000s, according to information contained in Silva (2010), Sociology experienced a gradual return to the school curriculum through some state legislation that restored, only regionally, its obligation.
• 3
  Examples of this are the texts of Osório and Sarandy (2012), Kieling (2013) and Araújo et al. (2014).
• 4
  Obviously, we are aware that the evaluation of learning is only effective during teaching practice. However, since the textbook is a fundamental resource in structuring this practice, it can give us indications, through its explicit or implicit evaluation proposals, of the way in which the evaluation processes have been configured in a given disciplinary context.
• 5
  For example, in previous research (Pires & Marques, 2020), we analyzed the five Sociology textbooks approved in the National Textbook Program - PNLD 2018.
• 6
  According to Neuhold (2019), the first time that Sociology appears as a mandatory component of the secondary school curriculum was in 1890, through the Benjamin Constant Reform. However, due to the non-implementation of this reform, the teaching of Sociology was not implemented in practice. Later, in 1925, with the Rocha Vaz Reform, Sociology found its first space of realization, being inserted as a mandatory subject in the curriculum of the sixth year of secondary education. However, the effects of this reform on the structuring of this level of education were restricted to the Federal District, specifically to Colégio Pedro II. Only in 1931, with the Francisco Campos Reform, valid for the entire Brazilian territory, Sociology was projected nationally as a mandatory component of the Complementary Course, the last phase of secondary education.
• 7
  These works were published during the Francisco Campos Reform, approved in 1931. Commenting on the implications of this reform for the teaching of Sociology, Machado (1987) points out that its effects would only be felt in 1937, the year in which the series, in which this discipline had been inserted, would occur for the first time. Under these conditions, it makes sense that the publication of the first Sociology textbooks for this level of education began to occur only in the late 1930s.
• 8
  We seek to achieve the educational objectives, observing, in the works in question, information contained in covers, title pages, presentations, prefaces, appendices, introductory texts and/or initial chapters of presentation of Sociology.
• 9
  With regard to the programmatic contents, we access them mainly through the summaries of these works.
• 10
  In order to reach the methodologies employed by the works focused on the didactic transposition of the contents of Sociology, we had to go through the various chapters that made up each one of them, mapping the didactic resources used (iconographic elements, schemes, enumerations, etc.) and observing the ways in which the contents were worked (especially with regard to the language used).
• 11
  Of the five works analyzed, only two of them explicitly bring elements concerning evaluative processes: “Sociology Practices” (Práticas de Sociologia) and “Sociology Program” (Programa de Sociologia). In this regard, these works considered both more direct guidelines for the development of exams, present in pre-textual or post-textual parts, as well as the various activities aimed at the exercise and/or verification of learning. Such activities, in addition to being categorized, were accounted for. Thus, for counting purposes, we determine the unity of an activity by the presence of a structuring statement. Therefore, even if an activity encompassed multiple questions, it would be considered only one item to be recorded and computed, since such questions only acquire full meaning when viewed together, from the statement that connects them.
• 12
  T. N.: “[...] a chave para a solução de todos os problemas sociais, econômicos, políticos e outros”.
• 13
  T. N.: “O país iniciou a jornada de 30 com um verdadeiro programa de reforma educacional. Nas revoluções, como nas guerras, sabe-se, porém, como elas começam mas não se sabe como acabam./ A primeira fase daquela jornada caracterizou-se por ímpeto construtivo e por um esforço singular pela recuperação da escola [...]./ Numa segunda fase, a reação e um confuso tradicionalismo infiltraram-se [...]. O estado de espírito defensivo, que se apoderou da sociedade brasileira, interrompeu aquele ímpeto renovador. [...] Houve uma espécie de livre passe indiscriminado para tudo que fosse ou se rotulasse de tradicional e uma vigorosa hostilidade a tudo que fosse ou parecesse ser novo”.
• 14
  T. N.: “[...] nunca estivera organizado à base de um sistema nacional. O que existia eram os sistemas estaduais, sem articulação com o sistema central, alheios, portanto, a uma política nacional de educação”; “[...] todas as reformas que antecederam o movimento renovador, quando efetuadas pelo poder central, limitaram-se quase exclusivamente ao Distrito Federal, que as apresentava como ‘modelo’ aos Estados, sem, contudo, obrigá-los a adotá-las”; “[...] era a primeira vez que uma reforma atingia profundamente a estrutura do ensino e, o que é importante, era pela primeira vez imposta a todo o território nacional”.
• 15
  According to Piletti (1987), the way in which the Rocha Vaz Reform, the predecessor of the Francisco Campos Reform, structured secondary education, gave students two possibilities regarding their time of permanence at this level of education, which implied differences in the path and conditions for admission to higher education: 1) Being approved in the fifth year of high school, the student has already secured the necessary certification to enroll in the entrance exam; 2) However, after the completion of the sixth year, when the student would obtain the degree of Bachelor of Science and Letters, he would be assured preference for enrollment in the higher education course, regardless of the order of his classification in the entrance exam.
• 16
  T. N.: “Via de regra, o ensino secundario tem sido considerado entre nós como um simples instrumento de preparação dos candidatos ao ensino superior, desprezando-se, assim, a sua funcção eminentemente educativa, que consiste, precisamente, no desenvolvimento das faculdades de apreciação, de juizo, e de criterio, essenciaes a todos os ramos da actividade humana e, particularmente, no treino da intelligencia em collocar os problemas nos seus termos exactos e procurar a suas soluções mais adequadas”.
• 17
  T. N.: “ O curso foi dividido em duas partes, a primeira de cinco annos, que é a commum e fundamental, e a segunda, de dous annos, constituindo a necessaria adaptação dos candidatos aos cursos superiores e dividida em tres secções. Estas secções se constituirão de materias agrupadas de accôrdo com a orientação profissional do estudante. Para não levar, porém, muito longe a especialização, haverá materias communs ás tres, justamente destinadas á cultura geral, terreno necessario á approximação dos homens, cujos rumos profissionais já tendem a distancial-os”.
• 18
  T. N.: “[...] a sociologia surge no momento em que se queria, a um só tempo, reconhecer a realidade social do país e constituir a nação”; “[...] a disciplina tivera nesse período, aqui entre nós, a missão de redefinir novas condições para a organização e o progresso da nação”.
• 19
  T. N.: “[...] o processo de avaliação consiste essencialmente em determinar em que medida os objetivos educacionais estão sendo realmente alcançados pelo programa do currículo e do ensino”.
• 20
  This formative orientation leads us to the following considerations by Fernandes (1955, p. 100) about the teaching of Sociology at the secondary level: “[...] The preservation of the acquisitive, encyclopedic and propaedeutic character of secondary education is explained by the conservation of the legal-professional character of higher education”; original quotation in Portuguese: “[...] a conservação do caráter aquisitivo, enciclopédico e propedêutico do ensino de grau médio se explica pela conservação do caráter jurídico-profissional do ensino superior”. According to this author, it was a context in which a certain ideal of a “cultured man” prevailed, “[...] which conferred an honorary qualification on higher education diplomas and gave their holders the privilege of exercising the occupations considered noble”; original quotation in Portuguese: “[...] que conferia aos diplomas de ensino superior uma qualificação honorífica e dava aos seus portadores a regalia de exercerem as ocupações consideradas nobilitantes”.
• 21
  T. N.: “Conhecer os problemas sociais do Brasil é obra de Sociologia e é também dever de patriotismo. Desenvolver um programa de sociologia viva, como êsse que expusemos, é acima de tudo fazer obra de solidariedade social e de sadio nacionalismo”.
• 22
  T. N.: “O programa tinha em vista fazer da sociologia uma ciência normativa, isto é, dar-lhe missão de instrução moral e cívica”.
• 23
  T. N.: “[...] a aprendizagem só se dá em cima de um determinado conteúdo [...]”; “[...] quem aprende, aprende alguma coisa”.
• 24
  T. N.: “O ensino da sociologia ou é ativo, vivo, ou não é ensino de sociologia. Claro que as exposições teóricas do professor são imprescindíveis. Mas ao lado delas devem existir os trabalhos de campo, a pesquisa do aluno, o inquérito, a monografia”.
• 25
  T. N.: “O programa, demasiado extenso, abrangia assuntos, em sua maioria, estranhos à sociologia (direito, ciência política, economia política, etc.)”.
• 26
  Amaral Fontoura is usually pointed out as an author linked to the tradition of the so-called “Christian Sociology” or “Catholic Sociology” (Meucci, 2000; Cigales, 2019), thus being part of the Catholic Church's project to “re-spiritualize culture” (Schwartzman et al., 2000). If, in general, the Church and most of its intellectuals were averse to the New School (Escola Nova), Fontoura, in particular, seems to have established some points of contact with this educational perspective. This is what Campos (2002) tells us when he states that the aforementioned author adapted the New School (Escola Nova) theses to the conception of the Catholics, appropriating, especially, the model of activities to be developed in the school with a view to making teaching more interesting and encouraging the participation of students in school life and in the community. This orientation helps to understand Fontoura's proposal of a “living Sociology” and its disagreement with the official program. Original quotation in Portuguese: “[...] é por vezes prolixo, perde-se em questões de importância secundária”.
• 27
  In his research, Meucci (2000, p. 62-63) makes a similar discovery: “[...] Although the authors [of the Sociology textbooks] understood the empirical recognition of social reality as a necessity, there was something in the character of the [complementary] courses that immobilized the broad development of social research”. That said, she concludes: “In effect, it suffices to remember that the complementary courses were merely preparatory courses for the entrance of students into colleges and universities”; original quotation in Portuguese: “[...] embora os autores [dos manuais de sociologia] compreendessem como uma necessidade o reconhecimento empírico da realidade social, havia algo no caráter dos cursos [complementares] que imobilizava o desenvolvimento amplo de pesquisas sociais”; “Com efeito, basta lembrar que os cursos complementares eram meramente cursos preparatórios para o ingresso dos alunos nas faculdades e universidades”.

Edited by

Responsible associate editors:

Amurabi Oliveira (UFSC)

E-mail: [e-mail]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-1196

Cristiano Bodart (UFAL)

E-mail: [e-mail]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2195-2145

Raquel Discini de Campos (UFU)

E-mail: [e-mail]

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8186-2144

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  12 Aug 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  12 Sept 2023
• Accepted
  16 Feb 2024
• Published
  24 June 2024