Instructions to the Teachers and Portuguese Teaching at Ethnic Schools in the Itajaí Valley in the Mitteilungen des Deutschen Schulvereins für Santa Catharina (Südbrasilien) Newspaper (1906-1917)

Abstract:

The article aims to investigate the process of instruction to teachers of ethnic ‘German’ community schools in the Itajaí Valley from 1906 to 1917, in which the Journal of the Association of Teachers and School Societies of Santa Catarina (Southern Brazil), Mitteilungen des Deutschen Schulvereins für Santa Catharina (Südbrasilien) exposed the norms about the curriculum and pedagogical guidelines. This newspaper guided the teacher in the didactic, cultural, critical, moralistic spheres and mirrored the organization of the community in relation to formal education, the German language and the Portuguese language. Thus, this study seeks to investigate the relationship between education and ethnicity through the inclusion of the Portuguese language in the guidelines for teachers in the aforementioned newspaper. The discussions are anchored in F. Barth, analyzing the strategies for local and regional education aiming to maintain ethnic specificities and, at the same time, negotiating with elements from other ethnic groups. As a result, the relevance of the newspaper as a research source for understanding the development of formal education in the Itajaí Valley and the process of re-signifying ethnic identity through the insertion of Portuguese into the school curriculum of ethnic schools is evident.

Keywords:
german immigration; ethnic schools; teacher training; portuguese language teaching