On the encounter of health with education: Thenew school and its developments in discussion

Abstract

Based on Foucauldian ideas, the present studyaimed at analyzing the discursive games established on the encounter between health and Brazilian pedagogy from the 1920s – encounter which was featured by escolanovismo. Therefore, we analyzed, at first, some books from the Bibliotheca de Educação collection, carried out by key authors of the Movimento Escola Nova (New School Movement), in which emerges the primacy of that cognition would be subjected to pertinent procedures to brain physiology. In a second moment, we investigated academic papers in a set of contemporary educational journals dedicated to criticise hygienists, ideological or normative biases supposedly inherent to the New School, whose analyses have proved captive of a denunciatory approach to the relations of power-knowledge in force; these relations, according to the examined authors, generated unfailing pathologizing effects to school practices. As a conclusion, we suggested an analytical turning able to put into question approaches based on a priori notions, such as development, enlightenment and representation in favor of reflections focused on the uninterrupted game between subjective processes and veridiction policies that outline the current educational field.