Introduction

The school institutions history gained substantial proportion in the last decade as a theme within the Education History field. The number of researches increased and, consequently, the interpretative possibilities expanded from 1990´s notably. Factors as theoretical-methodological diversity, the amount of investigations, the approaches plurality, and among others, have produced the need for constant and systematic discussion of the new problems and research possibilities that are opening up around the subject.

This article is in this context. Its goal is to inventory the academic production of dissertations and theses that analyze the historical trajectory of school institutions in a specific environment: the Postgraduate Programs in Education of Paraná universities. The research was developed in the following universities: Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUC-PR), State University of Western Paraná (UNIOESTE), State University of Ponta Grossa (UEPG), State University of Maringá (UEM), State University of Londrina (UEL), Midwest State University (UNICENTRO), and Tuiuti University of Paraná (UTP) from 2008 to 2016 in order to discuss aspects of historiographical making in the context of the Education History in relation to the school institutions theme.

The production balances are characterized as relevant exercises for all academic research fields. The master´s dissertations and, especially doctoral theses, are an excellent source to evaluate the recent developments within a research field. Specifically with regard to delimited objects of study, well-defined temporal and spatial landmarks, the theoretical concepts that serve as a basis for the object problematization, the used concepts, the methodological options taken and the study sources convened to give empirical solidity to the research.

The survey was carried out in the theses and dissertations database of Paraná universities. They were used as sources for the charts and statistics preparation. The text is arranged in this way. First, the Education History is analyzed with emphasis on the following aspects: the discipline historical trajectory and the constitution of the research line in the area. Thus, researches about school institutions as one of the most privileged in Education History field. After, in a more specific way, a production inventory is taken about the school institutions themes in Paraná´s universities from 2008 to 2016. Title, author's name, defense year and the institution are points highlighted.

1. Education History in Brazil: discipline and research trajectory

As a subject, the Education History has its trajectory directly associated with Pedagogy course. It developed at the beginning in some countries of Europe and the United States of America. The discipline appeared at the end of the nineteenth century to meet the systematic teaching of pedagogy.

The subject arrived in Brazil, especially, in school called Curso Normal and in the teachers training courses. According to Décio Gatti Júnior, the birth of the Education History is presented historically as a subject of great importance in the construction process of the Education Sciences from the middle of the nineteenth century to legitimate the passage from Pedagogy to the constitution of Education Sciences (GATTI JÚNIOR, 2007).

It is a new subject and has its path related to educational field. Its pedagogical nature, a subordinate field in the historical-educational classification in which the history of the school is; the pedagogical ideas study, the pedagogy history, the school culture, the educational legislation, the school institutions, and all that is historically concerned with school education. In accordance with Justino Pereira de Magalhães, the theoretical discussions on the Education History as a discipline is important to the fact that it allows the necessary approximation between History and Education (^{MAGALHÃES, 2011}).

The Pedagogy course was instituted by the Law Decree no 1.190 of April 4, 1939. The Education History became mandatory from the third year. The subject also became part of all Normal country curriculum schools named as History and Philosophy of Education with the Organic Law of Normal Teaching established by Decree-Law no. 8.530 of January 2, 1946. In short, the Education History began to be taught frequently after the Pedagogy course creation in 1939. Therefore, it became a fruitful field of research (^{SAVIANI, 2013a}).

Although the object of Education History is the societies studies and their material productions, it has not developed as a History area as a discipline, but it has grown "as a domain of a pedagogical nature in parallel, and even on historiographical research margins" (^{SAVIANI, 2013b}, p. 167) and it has been establishing as a field of study specific to pedagogues. Nonetheless, the field of Education itself considered the discipline of Education History as secondary (^{LOPES; GALVÃO, 2001}).

The research in the Education History field in Brazil began in the 1950s, in the Education Sector of the São Paulo University with a project to build a Brazilian education history based on a survey of original documents (^{WARDE, 2006}). There was not much research in this area in this moment. It was only in the late 1960s and 1970s-1980s that graduate programs in education arose and expanded in several country regions; a fact that marked the research consolidation in education and, especially, in the Education History. “[...] in general, research in education and, specifically - in the Education History area - began to develop more systematically with the Postgraduate Programs institutionalization from 1969" (^{SAVIANI, 2005}, p. 23).

The research had two main characteristics in the expansion and consolidation period of graduate studies: the schooling and the reaction to the military government’s policy. The most discussed themes dealt with the relationship between education and society. There was a strengthening of critical thinking and a return to classical authors during this period. Studies about society were the most constant.

2. Research on school institutions in the context of the Brazilian education history: a recurrent theme

The school theme has been frequent in Education History currently. The school historiography has been expanded and renewed from different information and analysis perspective. There has been a multiplication of views about specificity (school culture, pedagogy, architecture, furniture, didactic materials, artifacts, spatial arrangement). Comparative studies of territorial breadth (local, regional, national, and federal) have been diversified; and parameters and perspectives on globalization and globalization of process and didactic-pedagogical model school have been reinvigorated (^{MAGALHÃES, 2010}).

The history analysis of school institutions in Brazil has established itself as a research line in the context of the Education History and has increasingly become a promising field of investigation. It is a thought line that is concerned with describing its protagonists in its actions, as well as the different moments experienced by the educational institution, its contradictions, its physical structure, its relationship with educational policies, its pedagogical project and other themes that contribute to understanding the historical-educational phenomenon in its entirety. Justino Pereira de Magalhães affirms that

From the education sciences - focused on the school - the education history has tried to correspond to a hard core of trans and interdisciplinary, which defines and consolidates its epistemic constitution through contribution to debates in the educational sciences. (^{MAGALHÃES, 1998}, p. 57).

The number of new objects analyzed from their historicity has grown considerably in the Education area. New topics such as school institutions, educational practices, educational policies, rural education, indigenous education, special education, distance education, among others, have taken part in the agenda of the education historiography. Despite the difficulties in Brazil due to the lack of repertoires from organized sources, many education historians have been engaged in the task of historizing Brazilian school education through the construction of interpretations about the main educational institutions spread throughout the various Brazilian regions (GATTI JÚNIOR, 2002).

According to ^{Magalhães (2004}), the renewal of Education History acquired an epistemological identity. In his understanding, the education historiography has evolved through a critical revisionism and by building an internality that allows to understand and explain educational phenomena since the 1960s. The educational institutions history is part of this renewal process and constitutes an interdisciplinary challenge. In this type of research, the sociological, organizational and curricular analyses are compiled with the objective of a value historiographical reconstitution; because it proposes to contextualize the institution researched in the political, social, cultural, and educational scenario in which it has developed.

Educational institutions are born in physical contexts and belong to established socio-cultural frameworks and constitute as ways to produce new conceptions. According to André Petitat, the pedagogical activity has its origin in the set of relations between the institution, social groups, and the general conditions of the environment. In these conditions, they move, sometimes imperceptibly, but they provoke important pedagogical transformations (^{PETITAT, 1994}).

As ^{Magalhães (1999b}) proposes, the history of school institutions study is based on the assumption that such a way of studying inside the institution brings to the scenario of the Education History an amount of information that goes beyond the physical spaces and beyond the architectural structures, which show symbolic aspects. Such studies project communication relations and bring up the individual and collective memory from which the educational relationship arises. According to the author,

Architectural evolution, the spaces and structures management/adaptation, the cycles of demand for instruction, the cycles of human renewal and material resources, the qualification and recruitment of teaching staff policies, the admission and success of student staff policies are facts and events in combinations that likewise not only cannot be left out of the discourse preparation, integrator and problematizing of historical synthesis, but they are fundamental as factors of information and ways of structuring research (^{MAGALHÃES, 1999a}, p. 68-69)

One of the ways used to historize education currently - especially school education - is through the investigation of the educational institutions practices. It is possible to observe the fast interest in this theme when it is verified the amount of work presented to graduate programs in Education History throughout Brazil. In these researches, the school is seen under a perspective that considers its articulations between the intramural and extramural elements.

When the researcher studies the school institutions history, he/she portrays it as historical reconstruction; because its object - the school - does not result from a construction of its own. It already exists and/or existed. The researcher builds the knowledge of the object and this means to reconstruct it in a thought plan (^{SAVIANI, 2007}). Thus, the process of writing the school institutions history extends the possibilities of understanding the Education History itself to the extent that they relate to the whole, and not a mere education subdivision.

The exercise of historizing educational institutions can allow the advancement in knowledge of how society organizes and transmits school knowledge. The researcher approach with his object - a school institution - may happen for three reasons: for knowing something about the institution you want to research, for having access to the memories and institution stores or for not having academic research about the school (^{MAGALHÃES, 1999a}).

The research field that discusses history and educational institutions historiography has attracted a considerable number of researchers in the last years, mostly linked to the area of the Education History, especially in the Postgraduate Programs in Education of Brazilian universities.

Several researchers in the Education History field mapped the theme production of educational institutions in the main Brazilian universities. Nonetheless, such investigations comprise a period that goes from the beginning of the 1990s to the year 2007². Our work pursues to analyze the studies on this theme with emphasis on the academic production of universities in Paraná. In the expectation of contributing to the advancement of research in the area, theses and dissertations inventory is proposed from 2008 to 2016.

The studies of school institutions represent nowadays an important research theme that is gradually multiplied in the Postgraduate Programs in Education. Dermeval Saviani presents four types of balance in Brazilian education historiography that can serve as a model in mapping the state of the art:

1) the balance as a survey of the situation in which historiographic production finds itself, a kind of 'state of the art', carried out on the basis of specific research objects to be investigated; 2) the balance as a sequential record of the area entire production aimed at highlighting the progressive constitution, development, and consolidation of the Education History field in Brazil; 3) the balance as a production systematization available in the area in view of its incorporation into the teaching of the discipline Education History in the pedagogy courses and master's and doctoral degrees in education; 4) the balance as a survey, more or less exhaustive, of the studies and research produced with a view to composing a global record that, made available to scholars of the area, will be used according to their specific interests (^{SAVIANI, 2007}, p. 150).

The production mapping and questioning is a fundamental activity to evaluate the quality and meaning of the work that is being done and to outline the future research paths. The production balances also have another meaning that refers to the identity issue of the research field (^{PINTASSILGO; BEATO, 2014}).

3. The production of theses and dissertations balance on the school institutions theme in Paraná's universities (2008-2016)

The thematic consolidation that analyzes the history and historiography of school institutions within the scope of the Post-Graduation in Brazil took place by events organized by the Group of Studies and Research History, Society and Education in Brazil (HISTEDBR). This group organized two days in 2005. The first, V Jornada, happened between May 9 and 12 at the University of Sorocaba (UNISO), which had as its general theme ‘Brazilian School Institutions: History, Historiography, and Practices’. The second one, VI Jornada, occurred at the State University of Ponta Grossa (UEPG), which had as its theme ‘Historical Reconstruction of School Institutions in Brazil’, from November 7 to 9.

The events organized by HISTEDBR after 2005 continued to receive a significant amount of work on the subject. Therefore, they have been contributing to the consolidation of the line research in the Post-graduation in Education in Brazil. These events were important spaces for researchers of the Education History to discuss the topic. According to ^{Saviani (2007}), if the fifth day had a proposal to approach school institutions from the perspective of their history, historiography and practices, the sixth day complemented it by proposing its historical reconstruction.

Besides HISTEDBR, the Society of the Education History (SBHE) played an important role as the main entity. In this process, important international events in the area stand out, especially the Ibero-American Congresses on Education and the Luso-Brazilian Congresses on the Education History (^{SAVIANI; et al., 2011}).

The Brazilian Society of Education History organizes biennially the Brazilian Congress of the Education History and publishes ‘The Brazilian Journal of the Education History’ (RBHE). From the eight congresses organized until 2015, the thematic symposium that analyzes the history of school institutions counted on the fourth edition. It was held in 2006, in Goiânia. In the 2011, 2013 and 2015, the congresses held, respectively, in Vitória, Cuiabá and Maringá. The entitled conference ‘History of educational institutions and practices’ had a large number of papers presented by several researchers from many regions and institutions of the country. Flávio Massami Martins Ruckstadter and Vanessa Campos Mariano Ruckstadter analyze and highlight:

In 2011, the thematic symposium ‘History of school institutions and educational practices’ recorded again the highest number of papers presented (248) out of a total of 961 proposals. In 2013, 201 papers were presented in the thematic round table ‘History of school institutions and educational practices’, and it represents, once again, one of the center line of greatest demand in the event (^{RUCKSTADTER; RUCKSTADTER, 2015}, p. 112).

The Congress of 2015, held in Maringá-PR, on June 29 and July 2, had 823 works approved for 10 thematic symposiums. 218 of them were for the historical discussion of ‘Educational institutions and practices’ and had more proposals approved, followed by the round table ‘Printed, intellectual and Education History’ with 170 works approved.

Works were consulted in order to do an inventory on the educational institutions thematic. The papers published in the Workshops and Seminars held by the Research Group HISTEDBR (WG West Region of Paraná - HISTEDOPR; WG Maranhão - HISTEDBR-MA), which presented the theme related to school institutions in the last two years (2013 and 2014). The communications registered in the congresses: X Luso-Brazilian Congress on the Education History, held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná - Curitiba/PR, in 2014; 36th National Meeting of ANPEd, held at Campus Samambaia/UFG - Goiânia/GO, in 2013; X ANPEd Sul - Scientific Meeting of ANPEd, held at the campus of State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC) - Florianópolis/SC, in 2014; 37th Scientific Meeting of ANPEd, held in Florianópolis/SC, in 2015.

The work presented at the VII Brazilian Congress on the Education History (CBHE) occurred at the Federal University of Mato Grosso - Cuiabá/MT, in 2013; VIII Brazilian Congress on the Education History, held at the State University of Maringá-PR, from 29 June to 2 July 2015; XIII Research Seminar of the Graduate Program in Education and the I Interinstitutional Seminar on Research in Education in the South Region, held at the State University of Maringá-PR, from 2 to 4 December 2015, were also included.

The analysis of these events in the area brings to light the remarkable proportion that studies on the history of school institutions have gained at the national level. However, in Paraná state, the number of investigations on the historical trajectory of educational institutions is not compatible with what is seen in the national scenario. A production survey of theses and dissertations that discuss the educational institutions theme in Paraná state was carried out, and to this end, digital collections of the main universities were verified.

The dissertations and theses were analyzed over a period of nine years between 2008 and 2016. The master's dissertations were consulted in the collections of the following Paraná universities: Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUC-PR), State University of Western Paraná (UNIOESTE), State University of Ponta Grossa (UEPG), State University of Maringá (UEM), State University of Londrina (UEL), Midwest State University (UNICENTRO) and Tuiuti University of Paraná (UTP).

These universities were chosen due to the fact that they have Postgraduate Programs in Education and also because they present research on educational institutions.

In the nine-year period, thirty-two (32) dissertations were defended in the eight universities analyzed. The State University of Maringá produced more works. It presented the most regularity in the number of defended works. The most productive year was 2012.

Following Paraná universities doctoral theses consulted collections: Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUC-PR), State University of Ponta Grossa (UEPG), State University of Maringá (UEM), Tuiuti University of Paraná (UTP). All of them offer doctorates in Education and have a thought line that contemplates the study of the school institutions history.

The following table shows the theses that discuss the school institutions theme, the year and the institution in which they were defended.

In the nine-year period, seven theses were presented on the theme under analysis in the five surveyed universities. The highest incidence of studies was in the Federal University of Paraná with four studies. The State University of Maringá presented a modest incidence.

Despite the research profusion on the subject of educational institutions at the national level in Paraná universities, the data analyzed reveal that research is not so common.

^{Pintassilgo and Beato (2014}) state that the theses are exemplary in terms of design and the course of research; because they represent an investment of several years by their authors and are subject to formal evaluation by senior researchers belonging to the field. In addition, it requires the research options clarity, instruments and the articulation between theory and empirical data. The final product has to have the mark of some originality. In addition, the influence of the respective tutors is present in these theses, considered, as a whole, the legitimate representatives of this sector of the academic world.

A table is presented with detailed dissertations and theses data defended in the previously named universities, which discuss the educational institutions theme.

The production balances are an important exercise for any research field that aspires to scientific constitution. Jorge Ramos do Ó declares: ‘there is no academic identity outside a critical awareness of the modus operandi and there is no scientific discipline that can reasonably be affirmed outside a constant assessment and questioning of its calendar or research agenda’ (Ó, 2007, p. 38).

Dissertations and theses can serve as an important source for evaluating the progress of research field, especially with regard to the theoretical concepts that are fundamental part for the object problematization, the used concepts, the methodological options taken and the sources that are the work foundation and support the research.

Conclusion

The production survey revealed the theme of the educational institutions history has been recurrent in the Education History field nationally. However, this topic lacks more attention and presents itself as a challenge to researchers who wish to get involved with this task in Paraná state.

In the HISTEDBR conferences, Dermeval Saviani defended the historical reconstitution process of the school institutions in Brazil could be constituted as a collective task of the researchers connected to the work groups and to the Post-graduation Programs. The initial step would be the mapping of school institutions and then the work should be turned to basic academic production works on each of the mapped institutions. According to the author, based on these guidelines presented by him, it would be possible to create "a project involving master's students in the dissertations production that would become basic monographs covering the different forms and types of school institutions" (^{SAVIANI, 2007}, p. 26).

The challenges imposed to historical research on school institutions in Paraná state are diverse. From the repertoires inexistence of organized sources, lack of documents or degraded documents; not only by the action of time, but also by inadequate shelter and to the access to some files. Nevertheless, such challenges must be faced by researchers since investigations into the history and historiography of educational institutions are an important instrument in the process of preserving the local, regional, and even national education history and memory.

Therefore, although research on the subject has already made significant progress, there is still much to be done. Many state educational institutions can be objects of academic investigation. When they are historiated, these institutions can unveil aspects not yet analyzed in the history of Brazilian education.