Abstract

GUALTIERI, Regina Cândida Ellero. From social regeneration to biological right: a turning point in the educational proposals of Fernando de Azevedo. Rev. Elet. Educ. [online]. 2018, vol.12, n.2, pp.483-500. ISSN 1982-7199.  https://doi.org/10.14244/198271992094.

In this paper we discuss changes in educational proposals of Fernando de Azevedo (1894-1974), occurred from the 1910s to the 1930s, in their links with eugenic and hygienic ideas. Taking as object of analysis Azevedo’s texts of this period, we identify two moments. The first one in which he shares the idea that aesthetical, mental and moral changes can be induced by the educative process, a transformist concept, according to which physical exercises could alter undesirable individual or race’s characteristics. Such changes, able to be inherited, could lead to ethnic and moral regeneration of society. Later, education was thought to be selective, based on the criteria of biological right, assured by natural abilities, not inherited from individuals. It is a selective perspective that promotes those who are considered to be more capable. Such turning point of Azevedo’s proposals followed the debates among eugenic and hygienic defenders, so that if we understand it we can reflect about the selective school that characterized public institution in the twentieth century.

Keywords : Social regeneration; Biological right; Eugenics; Hygiene.

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