The discussion here presented aims at exploring historical aspects of the place of coeducation at the moment that elementary school teaching changed from a predominantly male occupation, in mid-nineteenth-century, to a feminine career in the 20th century. The education of girls and the feminization of teaching are analyzed as part of the reforms which took place at the end of the 19th century and which can be understood in the context of the spirit of modernization which characterized Brazil at the turn of the last century.
Coeducation; Education of Women; Feminization of Teaching