Gramscian thought and Brazilian education

Abstract

If we briefly review the great debates concerning public school in Brazil since the 1920s, we see that the Left only took up a socialist project for public education during the 1980s. During the 1920s, anarchism played an important role in the Brazilian labor movement, a consequence of southern European immigration and the transplantation of ideologies in vogue at the time, particularly in Italy, Spain and Portugal (Rodrigues, 1992). The anarchist trend favored locally controlled community schools (Luizetto, 1982, p. 62), but it was against public schools, organized and financed by the government (Luizetto, 1986; Tragtenberg, 1982). Thus, the question of State sponsored education was not contemplated among the ranks of the Brazilian labor movement, nor did it play a decisive role in the political agenda of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB).