Memory narratives and education in Vitoria da Conquista, Brazil, in the first half of the twentieth century - Do not forget the world we lived in!

Abstract

The memory narratives of former students of the Ginásio da Conquista and the Educandário Juvêncio Terra in the 1940s and 1950s, recollected in interviews conducted between 2007 and 2012, is discussed. Analysis occurs as a dialogue with the vicissitudes of Brazilian education in the first half the twentieth century while examining the multiple factors that influenced its history, legal apparatus and pedagogical activities. The concept of memory, or ‘social memory’, is crucial to analyze remembered and shared experiences by agents that participate in a determined social group. Current investigation is fore grounded on James Fentress´s and Chris Wickham´s theories on the collective and personal dimension of people´s life within social memory. Current analysis is based on the theoretical and methodological field of Dialectic Materialism.