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Cadernos de História da Educação
On-line version ISSN 1982-7806
Cad. Hist. Educ. vol.20 Uberlândia 2021 Epub Jan 29, 2022
https://doi.org/10.14393/che-v20-2021-4
Articles
Journal Movimento from UNE as an object and source for studies about the history of brazilian education1
1Instituto Federal do Paraná (Brasil). carla.ramos@ifpr.edu.br
2Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa (Brasil). Bolsista de Produtividade em Pesquisa do CNPq. misabelnasc@gmail.com
This article analyzes the Journal Movimento from the National Students´ Union (UNE, in the Portuguese acronym), in particular the publications from 1962 and 1963 aiming to present its study potentialities both as object and source for research about the history of Brazilian education. The research methodology was the documental analysis based on the assumption that the object of historical analysis should be understood in its totality, that is, from the numerous dimensions of human reality. The journal Movimento, produced by a student political representative entity aimed at being a channel for the dissemination of progressive ideas that underpinned a nationalist and developmental project for Brazil in the early 1960s; because of these characteristics, the journal became a meaningful source of reference for researchers in the educational area.
Keywords: History of Education; Student Press; Journal Movimento.
Esse artigo tem como objetivo analisar a revista Movimento da União Nacional dos Estudantes, especificamente suas publicações entre os anos de 1962 e 1963, com o intuito de apresentar as suas potencialidades de estudo, enquanto objeto e fonte, para as pesquisas em história da educação brasileira. Empregamos a metodologia da análise documental e partimos do pressuposto de que o objeto de investigação histórica deve ser compreendido na sua totalidade, ou seja, a partir das várias dimensões da realidade humana. O periódico Movimento, produzido por uma entidade política-representativa estudantil, propôs ser um canal de disseminação das ideias progressistas que fundamentaram um projeto nacionalista e desenvolvimentista para o Brasil nos anos iniciais da década de 1960 e, por essas características, o impresso passa a ser uma referência significativa aos pesquisadores da área educacional.
Palavras-chave: História da Educação; Imprensa Estudantil; Revista Movimento
Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la revista Movimiento de la Unión Nacional de los Estudiantes, específicamente sus publicaciones entre los años 1962 y 1963, a fin de presentar sus potencialidades de estudio, como objeto y fuente, para las investigaciones en historia de la educación brasileña. Empleamos la metodología del análisis documental y partimos del supuesto de que el objeto de investigación histórica debe ser comprendido en su totalidad, o sea, a partir de las múltiples dimensiones de la realidad humana. El periódico Movimiento, producido por una entidad político-representativa estudiantil, propuso ser un canal de diseminación de las ideas progresistas que fundamentaron un proyecto nacionalista y desarrollista para el Brasil en los años iniciales de la década de 1960 y, por esas características, el impreso pasa a ser una referencia significativa a los investigadores del área educativa.
Palabras clave: Historia de la Educación; Prensa Estudiantil; Revista Movimiento.
Introduction
Researchers who have been working to analyze Brazilian education and bring its history to the fore are increasingly expanding its universe of sources and themes. This process made possible attentive glances at the written press and, in this way, newspapers, serials, magazines and newsletters produced by subjects associated with the different educational spaces became primary sources and objects of investigation. In addition to the education2 and teaching press, other journals aimed at the general public and maintained by institutions of the most varied purposes are also being honored.
Within the history of education, there is already a consensus among scholars about the importance of the press as a source and as an object, because, in addition to having a wealth of data, in some cases it is the only trace of historical reconstruction about the educational organization of certain individuals (OLIVEIRA, 2011). In this sense,
the press is probably the place that facilitates a better knowledge of educational realities, since here, in one way or another, the set of problems in this area are manifested. It is difficult to imagine a more useful way to understand the relationships between theory and practice, between projects and realities, between tradition and innovation, ... These are the characteristics of the press (the proximity to the event, the fleeting and controversial, the will to intervene in reality) that give it this unique and irreplaceable status as a source for the historical and sociological study of education and pedagogy. (NÓVOA, 2002, p. 31).
The printed material, when analyzed in its entirety3, can reveal the ideologies produced by individuals, in different times and spaces, about the educational conditions that are contemporary with them, and even those conditions that they aim for as ideals in the set of their social positions. The pedagogical press "[...] makes it possible to evaluate the organizations' policies, social concerns, ideological antagonisms and affiliations, educational and school practices." (BASTOS, 2002, p. 173).
In the case of student journals, scholars can find elements that help in the reconstruction of a history of Brazilian education from the perspective of the student, knowing their universe of relationships, identities, resistances, contradictions and, above all, actions. However, it is important to emphasize that the analysis carried out by the researcher is based mainly on his theoretical-methodological framework, because it is the theoretical perspective that allows us to raise the problems and define the research objectives.
Most of the stricto sensu academic productions developed in education programs in Brazil have been using the student press as a source or object based on the theoretical assumptions of Cultural History. These studies “[...] are centered on reflections of school culture, history of writing, reading and school practices. Regarding the method, the researches focus their efforts on analyzing the content, materiality and life cycle of the journals [...]” (TORRES; NASCIMENTO, 2018, p. 475-476).
This article brings some reflections and notes from a more complex research that contemplates the student movement Movimento produced by the National Union of Students (UNE) in the years 1962 and 1963. Through documentary analysis and the assumption that the press as an expression ideological “it is not an imaginary representation detached from reality, it is effective within concrete relationships” (ZANLORENZI, 2014, p. 1), we intend to contextualize this journal in order to present its potentialities as an object and source for research in history of Brazilian education.
Among the contributions we highlight, for example, the exhibition of a print produced by a student political-representative entity that proposed to be a channel for the dissemination of progressive ideas that founded a nationalist and developmentalist project for Brazil in the early 1960s. These characteristics, the printed matter becomes a significant reference to researchers in the educational area in an attempt to understand the positioning of the UNE before society in a given historical context and, also, their conceptions about education, especially in Brazilian University education.
The Movimento magazine as an object of study
We start from the theoretical assumption that the press is the ideological expression of individuals inserted in a historical context and in this way this reality directly interferes in the formation of the values of these subjects. Furthermore, we admit that, through the press, these individuals seek to intervene in the space that surrounds them and, therefore, periodicals, newspapers and student newsletters carry with them concepts about society, the universe and the school community and of the educational process.
Based on this assertion, we understand that the material reality in which the press is inserted needs to be the starting point for the analysis of the journal, and not the other way around, since the ideas are formulated by real subjects living in real conditions. By proceeding methodologically in this way, the researcher will be able to look beyond appearances, reproducing, at the level of thought, the essence of the object investigated (PAULO NETTO, 2011).
Some research in education has sought to investigate the student press from its entirety, that is, from the various dimensions of human reality and, among the most relevant results, there is the historical rescue of Brazilian education in the set of social transformations. In this sense, studies that have the printed object as an object are increasingly distancing themselves from descriptive narratives, when only thorough analyzes of the aesthetic, physical and content elements of publications were carried out and without references to the universe in which it was inserted.
Studies in education on the student press allow knowing the collective performance of students in the school space and their motivations as historical subjects. In the case of the periodical Movimento, we observed a more delineated action that went beyond the university's borders, since the print was produced by a political-representative entity of academics at the national level and circulated in a more macro sphere.
The UNE Movimento magazine was already produced sporadically before 1962, however, in an internal newsletter format, mainly on the occasion of national meetings and major political events - such as the September 1961 issue, entitled “UNE and the coup” on the occasion of the resignation of president Jânio Quadros and the attempt by political groups to prevent the legal possession of vice president João Goulart. But, from 1962, the new editorial team proposed the following guidelines:
We try to establish a broad and free line for <Movimento> ... Its primary purpose is to reach the university audience and the common reader.... we have no end but a more relaxed dialogue on the ideas that guide our entity .. .culturally united to our reality and our problems, culturally driven by the kind of worldview that we consider to be the correct interpreter of this reality and problems ... we will try to be the <official body> of all progressive sectors of our intellectual landscape. (EDITORIAL, 1962, p. 3).
The editors' stance reveals that the Movimento magazine intended to communicate both with Brazilian university students and with the general population, in order to convey in its pages ideas that UNE considered as guiding their activism. Thus, this print carried a vision of the country and its most varied dimensions, in addition to being a political instrument in the realization of the wishes of this social group.
Between the years 1962 and 1963, eleven publications4 of this form were published, the twelfth edition being interrupted “[...] in 1964, when the civil-military coup occurred, installing the dictatorial regime that would last in Brazil until 1985.” (PORTILHO, 2011, p. 5). During this period, Brazil was undergoing major social transformations that promoted political unrest in the countryside and in the city. These were times of industrial growth, intense rural exodus, proletarianization and unionization, democratic mobilizations for the return of the presidential government regime and basic reforms, such as agrarian, tax, fiscal and electoral reform.
With regard to education, the country had just passed its first Law of Guidelines and Bases for National Education, dated December 20, 1961. Although this law represented a major achievement in the field of educational legislation, Brazilian education presented a high lag at all levels. In the case of higher education, only a minuscule portion of the population reached this level of schooling, enabling university students to have high access to scientific knowledge.
In a way, in that context, academic students were culturally privileged subjects and believed that popular mobilization was essential in the political struggle for structural reforms that would promote the economic and social development of the Brazilian nation. Thus, UNE intensified its militancy and began to carry out politicization campaigns with the student public and other social groups that were educationally marginalized, as was the case of the illiterate.
UNE acted on several fronts, especially in the set of actions of progressive groups that defend political, economic and social5 democratization. The resumption of publication of the Movimento magazine by the student body from 1962 onwards was one of several activities carried out in this context of militancy by democratic and nationalist sectors, contrary to the current situation in our country.
The Movimento magazine proposed to be the official channel for the dissemination of Brazilian progressive intellectual thought and this made it possible to give a voice not only to student leaders, but also to other political representations of parties, unions, business sectors, cultural and social movements. The magazine was published by Editora Universitária from UNE and, in testimony to the Project Memory of the Student Movement, Marcello Cerqueira highlighted the appearance of the printed matter:
[He started to participate in the student movement] In the management of Aldo [Arantes]. I think it was Betinho, I don't remember well. One of them had contact with José Aparecido de Oliveira [...]. He was the press secretary - or something like that - of Jânio Quadros and Aldo got an audience with Jânio by the hand of Zé Aparecido, he was the one who managed to found a printing company. So, we did a print shop on Frei Caneca Street and he invited me to work there. Editora Universitária was created, whose first director was Cacá Diegues and, at the same time, the magazine Movimento, whose first director was César Guimarães. The editors were Arnaldo Jabor and me. (CERQUEIRA, 2004 Apud PORTILHO, 2011, p. 5).
The magazine's birth took place in a period of political effervescence among Brazilian university students engaged in state and national representative entities. Thus, under the tutelage of UNE, the press began to disseminate its political ideas and actions. The word Movimento, title of the journal, appears prominently on the cover, but always next to the expression “Revista da União Nacional dos Estudante”, thus demarcating the direct link between the print and the university.
Movimento magazine had a cost of Cr $ 50 cruzeiros, the same value as the two largest magazines6 in circulation in Brazil during the first half of the 1960s. If we use the values of some basic foods of the population in 1962 as a reference, we can say that the price on the printed matter it represented on average half a kilo of rice and half a kilo of crystal sugar, in that same period7.
In a society where there was high inflation making the cost of living more expensive, especially for the working class, in addition to a shortage of food in urban regions at certain times of the year, due to the intense migratory flow towards cities, it was very likely that most population did not have the financial conditions to access commercialized written culture. Although UNE intends to reach the general public with its magazine, its circulation and sale at student congresses indicate that a large part of the readers belonged to the university staff, especially the leaders.
In the first edition, the number of print runs was not highlighted by the editorial board, but between the second and the fourth, the number of six thousand copies appears and, between the fifth and the eleventh edition, that number increased to ten thousand. In its highest circulation, the number expressed 10% of Brazilian higher education students, since the total number of students enrolled in undergraduate courses, during the first academic month of 1962, was 107 thousand and 509 students (INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO. .., 1962).
The editorial board was initially formed by university students César Guimarães (director), Arnaldo Jabor (editor) and Marcello Cerqueira (superintendent). Guimarães, Jabor and Cerqueira were studying law in the early 1960s and had experience in the student press for working for the newspaper O Metropolitano, an organ of the Metropolitan Students Union (UME) based in Rio de Janeiro. In 1963, there was a change in the editorial board and Marcello Cerqueira took over as director and, in editing and superintendence, the responsibility was left to Paulo Furtado de Castro and Alcir Henrique da Costa, respectively.
These university students, in addition to working in the publication of Movimento magazine, were also part of other UNE mobilizations and some were supporters or supporters of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). Except for student Alcir Henrique da Costa, all the others collaborated in the journal as authors. In the table below, we check the titles of your articles.
Table 1: Articles from the Movimento magazine authored by the editorial board
Author | Title | Number/Month/Year |
---|---|---|
Arnaldo Jabor | Sem título | 3/Junho/1962 |
Arnaldo Jabor, César Guimarães | Da Anti-Cultura à Cultura Popular | 1/Março/1962 |
César Guimarães | Universidade à luz da crítica O Protesto da juventude soviética Plano Bohan: humorismo com a miséria A greve da UNE Suspensão da greve |
2/Maio/1962 3/Junho/1962 3/Junho/1962 5/Setembro/1962 5/Setembro/1962 |
Luciola Lima, Paulo Furtado de Castro, César Guimarães | Hora e vez da boa escolha | 6/Outubro/1962 |
Homero da Cunha, César Guimarães, Paulo Romero, Roberto Pontual, Alaõr Barbosa | Informe | 6/Outubro/1962 |
Marcello Cerqueira | Encampação: ato necessário | 1/Março/1962 |
Source: Movimento, Rio de Janeiro: Universitária, 1962. Adaptado pela autora.
Among the editors who most published articles in the magazine, the university student César Guimarães stands out. In his most recent testimony he highlighted that his effective activism in the student movement was in the university press, an action promoted by “[...] the beginning of a movement around an intellectual and, in this case, political interest.” (AGUIAR; LIMA; ABREU, 2012, p. 247).
Based on his memoirs, Guimarães recalled that, at the time of the publication of the Movimento, academics constituted an elite because of the small number of university students. Therefore, as culturally privileged individuals and faced with a “[...] electoral democracy with restricted participation like that, in which half the population was excluded from voting simply because they were illiterate; in a world that is still rural [...] ”(AGUIAR; LIMA; ABREU, 2012, p. 247), the military in the student press was of significant importance in terms of political effectiveness.
The university press was gaining momentum in all the student movement's actions since the late 1950s and the first edition of Movimento magazine addressed this issue in an attempt to justify its relevance, in addition to presenting some regional publications. This form of press was conceived "[...] as that which, made by students under their exclusive responsibility, reaches the university environment in general, and can reach the general public [...]" (CUNHA, 1962, p. 26 ).
According to the article entitled The new university press, students needed to combat the information reported by the mainstream press, as this characterized student demonstrations as being riotous and classified the student who was making politics as a communist or a useful innocent. In that sense, it was fundamental:
The university student, to make himself heard, only with his own means. Your newspapers, your magazines, your pamphlets. Something that, in one way or another, can tell society that "we exist", you know? And that the story is not always well told. A means of bringing to the public not only their political thinking, but also the activities developed in the field of their study or in other cultural fields. (CUNHA, 1962, p. 25).
The Movimento magazine has positioned itself as a channel for the dissemination of ideas from progressive sectors, which is why in its pages we find issues related to the economic, political and cultural educational field. The articles are authored by student, union and party leaders, economists, politicians and entrepreneurs linked to the nationalist agenda, intellectuals and artists. In the table below, some references follow in order to observe the diversity of subjects published in a single edition.
Table 2: Articles from the second edition of the UNE Movimento magazine
Title | Author | Author’s activity |
---|---|---|
Regulamentação de lucros | José Ermírio de Morais | Liderança empresarial |
O grande país dos analfabetos | Aron Abend | Coordenador da campanha de alfabetização da UNE |
Cinema novo | Carlos Diégues | Cineasta amador e um dos fundadores do Cinema Novo |
Capital estrangeiro | José Clemente de Oliveira | Economista |
Por uma arte popular revolucionária Entrevista com Jacobo Arbenz | Carlos Estevam Martins | Diretor do Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC) da UNE |
Hoje e amanhã e o teatro | Jean-Paul Sartre | Filósofo francês |
Universidade à luz da crítica | César Guimarães | Diretor da revista Movimento da UNE |
A direita no Brasil | Wanderley Guilherme | Intelectual do Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros (ISEB) |
Poco pan y mucho americanismo | Rogério Belda | Escritor e Humorista do Jornal O Metropolitano |
A revolução | Alaor Barbosa | Jornalista e Escritor |
Nota do fim: JK nos EUA | Sem autoria |
Source: Movimento, Rio de Janeiro: Universitária, n. 2, maio 1962. Adaptado pela autora.
Although the articles presented diverse subjects, the unity of the discourse was in the critique of the nation's underdevelopment and in the emphasis on the transformation of this reality. The texts pointed out, for example, illiteracy as one of the biggest educational problems in Brazil and, therefore, the demand for educational reform. Some articles defended the need to regulate foreign capital in favor of national industry, while others highlighted the role of political groups and art in this process of national transformation.
Generally, the articles were accompanied by illustrations, sometimes photographs of the authors or of the subjects covered and also of caricatured drawings in order to satirize or problematize the contradiction of the subject. The magazines had an average of forty pages and, in addition to the articles, there were texts written by the editorial board, general reports and book advertisements produced by Editora Universitária.
The advertisement of books by authors considered by UNE to be progressive was accompanied by a reflective note on the importance of works in the current context. The advertising of the books “Revolução e Contra-Revolução no Brasil” (by Franklin de Oliveira) and Cuban Revolution and Brazilian Revolution (by Jamil Almansur Haddad) was complemented with the following notes:
University Students in Brazil: Prestige and Publicize Two Honest, Objective and Current Books
In the pre-revolutionary reality of Brazil today, the forces of reaction and imperialism are more active than ever. It is necessary to characterize and face them. These two books are suitable weapons. (UNIVERSITÁRIOS, 1962, p. 34, emphasis added).
As we have seen, the Movimento magazine, as an object of study, can be investigated by researchers in the field of education in order to understand how UNE has positioned itself at a certain moment in Brazilian history. Through this form, students conveyed their vision of society and, above all, teaching, evaluated some educational issues based on their theoretical conceptions and pointed out possibilities for transformation.
The Movimento magazine as a historical source
The Movement movement reappeared at a time when the contradictions of industrial capitalism were sharpening in the Brazilian context and, consequently, producing practical effects on social relations. Among these developments, we mention the struggle for greater democratization of voting and educational offer at its most varied levels for the general population, as well as the mobilization of progressive sectors so that the State could carry out reforms in favor of the modernization of the productive forces in the countryside. and legislation favorable to the growth of the national industrial park.
What was at stake in João Goulart's8 government was the confrontation of two political-economic projects. On the one hand, the interests of the hegemonic groups linked to large foreign capital and the landowners representing a productive organization based on the export of foodstuffs and raw materials; and, on the other hand, national sectors opposed to the maintenance of this structure and advocates of reforms that, according to them, would promote the general development of the country.
It should be noted that in the international sphere, some events were important in the positioning of political associations such as, for example, UNE. These were times of the Cold War, of the Cuban Revolution, of independent movements on the African continent, of weakening democratic governments in Latin American countries. These facts contributed to the intensification of contradictory forces in Brazil and allowed the debate on issues that are still painful for the Brazilian elite, such as the question of taxation, the public function of the State and agrarian reform.
At this juncture, intellectual, social and political parties sought to join efforts, despite their ideological differences, for national emancipation, which, according to progressives, expressed above all the liberation of the “[...] Brazilian economic system founded on large agrarian property and turned to the exclusive production of some exportable genres of great commercial expression in the world markets” (PRADO JÚNIOR, 1981, p. 216).
The consolidation of emancipation would depend on eliminating imperialism and the latifundia and promoting democratic reforms to modify the Brazilian reality. UNE, an entity representing university students, was part of this progressive movement and, through its press, sought to disseminate this emancipatory project. Thus, Movimento magazine became a channel of communication with the student public with the purpose of relaying information that collaborated in politicization and mobilization for the necessary reforms.
In this sense, the Movimento print becomes a rich historical source of data for the researcher who seeks to know the concept of education and Brazilian society in the period of political effervescence that marked the country in the early 1960s. We know that the craft of historian depends on human remains and that the researcher needs to rely on sources actively to build his object on the plane of knowledge. According to Saviani (2004, p. 5):
The sources are in the origin, they constitute the starting point, the base, the support point of the historiographical construction that is the reconstruction, in the plane of the knowledge, of the studied historical object. Thus, historical sources are not the source of history, that is, it is not from them that history flows and flows. They, as records, as testimonies of historical acts, are the source of our historical knowledge, that is, it is from them that it springs, it is on them that the knowledge we produce about history is supported.
Historical research starts from the sources and, due to the theoretical-methodological basis, gains different perspectives, since the problematization of the object and, consequently, the objectives of the study emerge from the epistemological framework. For this reason, the historian's view and his theoretical conception is the lens of investigative analysis, therefore, in the educational field, we can have several conceptual and categorical understandings capable of bringing to light potentialities of studying the same trace.
In our case, we started from the category of totality to analyze the progressive thinking present in the Movimento magazine and, thus, when mapping the eleven editions of this print, we realized how much it expressed the consciences of the leaders of UNE and their supporters. These conceptions do not exist because of the ideas themselves, but because of the objective conditions experienced by the subjects who financed the magazine and collaborated with its texts.
It was by adopting this epistemological path, that before presenting the Movement's potential as a source, we carried out a historical contextualization of the period of its publication, because “as soon as this active life process is presented, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts” (MARX; ENGELS, 2007, p. 87). The study of this form can reveal the ideological conceptions of university student leaders and their connections with the Brazilian educational reality, taking into account the objective circumstances of these subjects in a given social context.
The press as an ideological expression unfolds from the material life of individuals, therefore, in addition to using the journal as a primary source, the researcher must also find subsidies in other vestiges to understand the real movement of his object of investigation. In this sense, no matter how important it is to analyze certain material characteristics of the journal, the focus is not on the description of the contents, as this way we would limit ourselves to the sphere of human consciousness, denying the premise that consciousness is conscious being, and therefore:
One does not start from what men say, imagine or represent, nor from men thought, imagined and represented to, from there, reach men of flesh and blood; it starts with really active men and, based on their real life process, the development of ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process is also exposed. (MARX, ENGELS, 2007, p. 94).
The interpretations in the light of this epistemology collaborated so that the researchers could go beyond the descriptions of the written press, understanding how the subjects that sponsored, coordinated the publishing and published their texts and images in the printed and organized themselves in that society, that is, as if positioned against certain political, cultural and economic conditions. Thus, the history of education through the press will reveal the material basis that supports educational thinking and not the other way around.
At the time of the publication of Movimento magazine, 1962 and 1963, there was a nationalist and developmentalist movement in Brazil that criticized imperialism, the land property and defended a popular democratic government. This progressive movement brought together the most politicized and culturally elite social sectors, including UNE, which assumed a commitment to fight for educational reforms, especially for higher education.
UNE seized the ideology of national development and in the pages of the Movimento sought to emphasize some problems in Brazilian education, such as the issue of illiteracy and university structure, as well as external educational situations. In the eleven editions, these themes appeared in several articles, as shown in the table below:
Table 3: Articles from the UNE Movimento magazine on education
Title | Author | Number/Month/Year |
---|---|---|
O grande país dos analfabetos | Aron Abend | 2/Maio/1962 |
Universidade à luz da crítica | César Guimarães | 2/Maio/1962 |
Planificação e descentralização do Ensino | UNE | 4/Julho/1962 |
Co-govêrno e participação universitária | UNE | 4/Julho/1962 |
Realidade do analfabetismo no Brasil | UNE | 4/Julho/1962 |
Roteiro de julho a julho | UNE | 4/Julho/1962 |
Debate internacional de estudantes | Sem autoria | 6/Outubro/1962 |
Conselho da UNE: novas diretrizes | Homero da Cunha | 8/Fevereiro/1963 |
A situação escolar em Cuba | Luiz Ronaldo Cabrera | 9/Março/1963 |
Source: Movimento, Rio de Janeiro: Universitária, 1962 e 1963. Adaptado pela autora.
The illiteracy rate in Brazil in 1960 was very high - reaching 39.7%, in the age group of 15 years old or more (INSTITUTO NACIONAL ..., [200?]) - and this situation weakened democracy because illiterates did not have the right to vote. Faced with this reality, and defending political democratization, UNE believed that a successful literacy campaign would depend on the leadership of the student movement and thus justified such a prerogative:
A system that makes illiteracy official cannot make a successful literacy campaign official. This is because only those who can mobilize the illiterate and literate masses ... In short: transform each literate person into a literate person or indirectly engage him in the movement. Previous campaigns failed because they failed to attract people to the campaign. (ABEND, 1962, p. 6).
UNE sought to convey information on the Movement's pages on the situation of illiteracy in the country, highlighting, according to its progressive point of view, its causes and consequences. This issue was debated in assemblies organized by the university, so the fourth edition of the magazine, published especially for the XXV National Congress of Students, addresses this issue in the article entitled Reality of illiteracy in Brazil.
In this article, the illiterate were conceived as the dominated class and the reader is led to understand the reason for maintaining this condition through the following questioning and UNE's progressive explanation:
Who is interested in maintaining such an institution?
Internally, to the social forces linked to the land property, as this is the form of land ownership. Externally, to the sectors of imperialism who are interested in maintaining Brazil as an exporter of primary products and an importer of manufactures. (UNIÃO NACIONAL ..., 1962b, p. 12).
The illiteracy situation was identified as the result of the relations of the productive organization in force in our country and, in order to transform this materiality, the elimination of its economic causes was essential (ABEND, 1962). Among the external influences that collaborated to strengthen the mobilizations of UNE in an attempt to raise the cultural level of the Brazilian people and reduce the high illiteracy rate, were the campaigns carried out by Cuba during the government of Fidel Castro, a regime defined by the university entity as revolutionary.
The report, called “A situação escolar em Cuba”, praises the educational progress achieved on the Cuban island after the fall of the government of Fulgencio Batista. According to the author, “in 1961, 'Year of Education', Cuba reduced its percentage of illiteracy to the lowest figure of 3.9% thanks to popular mobilization that led thousands of young people and adults to teach reading and writing to their country brothers and the city.” (CABRERA, 1963, p. 42, emphasis added).
In bringing up the Cuban educational situation, we found in UNE's progressive thinking a consistent belief that imperialism and illiteracy were sides of the same coin. Thus, once imperialist domination in Brazil was eliminated, as it was in Cuba, illiteracy would drastically decrease according to the vision of the editorial board of the Movimento magazine.
Between 1961 and 1963, UNE held three national seminars to discuss university reform. These events took place in Salvador (1961), Curitiba (1962) and Belo Horizonte (1963), respectively, these events were important to disseminate the entity's university project to the student public. The theme was also addressed in the pages of the Movement, as this issue needed to gain strength among students of Brazilian higher education and from all social strata who desired national development.
In the second issue of the Movimento magazine, the university educational reform was presented from the student's point of view. According to the author of the article, entitled University in the light of criticism, this reform was hampered by the following factors:
1) the underdeveloped Brazilian structure; 2) reaction of political leaders to any structural transformation; 3) reduced funds and their misuse; 4) the recent law of guidelines and bases, which does nothing but sanction the current situation; 5) several of the constitutional principles, such as the one that ensures the vitality of the chair; 6) lack of politicization of the student body; 7) the commitment of a large part of the teaching staff to the current situation. (GUIMARÃES, 1962, p. 21).
UNE analyzed the university based on the Brazilian social organization, so the economic underdevelopment and the political structure hindered the educational changes claimed by the students. In addition, the absence of a politicized academic community collaborated directly to maintain a higher education alienated and permeable to external domination (GUIMARÃES, 1962).
In order to elucidate the relationship between society and the university, UNE defended the thesis “[...] that in a class society, the university is a cultural instrument of dominance of one class by another of dominance of the center of Power over the periphery of power.” (UNIÃO NACIONAL ..., 1962a, p. 5). In this sense, the student struggle was based on the so-called “co-government”, that is, the effective participation of university students in the proportion of 1/3 in the administrative collegiate bodies of the university, with the right to voice and vote.
The struggle for “co-government” was proposed by UNE during the II National Seminar on University Reform held in Curitiba in March 1962 and, in June of the same year, the “Strike for a third” began. In the July issue, a month before the end of the strike, the magazine Movimento took stock of the mobilization:
The strike for a third has already given much to talk about. And it will give even more. It is difficult for those who write almost a month before this congress to make bigger predictions. How will the strike end? How long will it last? Not easy answers. One thing, however, is certain: she will win. Whether it will last long or short, whether it will end this way or that way, it matters little. For the motto is formed: 1/3 or strike, and strike forever cannot be. (UNIÃO NACIONAL ..., 1962c, p. 23).
In this report, UNE recorded one of its militant actions, which at that time was undoubtedly the biggest resistance campaign among university students, as the strike was going on for its second month. The leaders still did not have a clear idea of the duration and achievements of this mobilization, but they certainly trusted in the victory and tried to pass this conviction on to the readers of the periodical.
In order to evaluate the execution of the program of the UNE board, in January 1963, the 1st Ordinary Council of the entity in Fortaleza was held. At this event, the Political Line Commission highlighted the posture of the university student in the context of national problems and once again reaffirmed his commitment to the development of the country, understood as follows:
In these terms, the commission proposes to increase the struggle for grassroots reforms, against the current structure of domination of Brazilian society, for the elimination of social differences and for the implantation of a new society, which affirms the real equality between all those who elaborate progress Social. (CUNHA, 1963, p. 5).
The university reform was conceived within the more general movement of the Brazilian revolution, therefore, when thinking about the transformation of education, we also thought about a structural and qualitative change in society (UNIÃO NACIONAL ..., 1962a). In this way, Movimento magazine makes it possible to get to know the vision of UNE and other progressive entities about teaching and the Brazilian social organization that shapes it.
As a historical source, Movimento presents itself as a valuable vestige of information on Brazilian education. First, because the journal was financed by UNE and, in this sense, it was the look of student leaders; and, secondly, because at the time of its publication, Brazilian society experienced an intense political upheaval in favor of basic reforms of a nationalist and developmental nature. In view of these arguments, the journal can bring to light not only the ideological contradictions, but above all the social contradictions existing at that juncture.
Final considerations
The use of the press, as an object and historical source, has broadened the conception of the history of education, because in addition to participating in the social dynamics, it is linked “[...] to the production process of human existence.” (SCHELBAUER; ARAÚJO, 2007, p. 5). The periodical Movimento allows us to get to know the concept of UNE, therefore of university student leaders, about the teaching structure in Brazil in the early 1960s and how the entity positioned itself politically through the written press.
The issue of education was approached in the pages of the Movement based on progressive thinking that denounced the country's underdevelopment and disseminated the idea of a revolution based on democratic consolidation and national economic emancipation. Thus, UNE sought to denounce the precariousness of the universities' physical and pedagogical structure and convey the urgent need for mass literacy.
The periodical Movimento expresses one side of human history, as university students sought to have their own communication channel to inform the Brazilian population what they thought of the university and the participation of students in this educational space. Furthermore, they sought to problematize the causes that, according to them, were the reasons for the educational contradictions.
The history of education is the story of all subjects directly or indirectly involved in education, so if we stop giving the student a voice, our historical writing will be an incomplete narrative of the past. It was not our intention to describe and present in detail the articles that make up the periodical, but rather to contextualize in a general way the Movimento magazine during the period of political mobilizations of progressive forces, in order to present its potential as an object and source for the history of Brazilian education.
REFERENCES
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2This press is also known as pedagogical and is characterized by several researchers as a press aimed at the teaching public in order to disseminate educational projects and principles. Through this press it is possible to get to know the pedagogical thinking, the educational and school routine, as well as the educational discourses of the various actors in this universe.
3To analyze the written press from the whole is to understand that it is an expression of the thinking of a situation and, therefore, it is necessary to investigate the material conditions of those responsible for the printed matter, as well as of the authors and the target audience.
4In 1962, there were seven editions: March, May, June, July, September, October and November. In 1963, there were four editions: February, March, April, May.
5Among the transformations advocated by progressive groups, there was the development of the national market, the control of foreign capital, agrarian reform, the increase in the standard of living of the Brazilian population and improvements in education, reducing the gap between the different levels.
6The two magazines with the greatest circulation in Brazil during this period were O Cruzeiro and Manchete, both had an average of 400 thousand print runs, although they have different profiles than the Movimento magazine.
7According to the newspaper Correio da Manhã, the kilo of rice and crystal sugar cost 60 and 30 cruzeiros respectively in 1962. (FEIJÃO...,1962).
Received: March 05, 2020; Accepted: June 16, 2020