Colégio São José: triagem sociomoral no âmbito escolar – Caxias-MA (1940 -1960)

Abstract

In this investigation, I report and analyze the functioning and creation of the College São José in Caxias, MA, a Catholic confessional college of the Association of the Capuchin Missionary Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi, created by Friar John Peter of Sixtus. The college founded on February 14, 1934, only for females, initially offered the primary course, now elementary school, later gymnasium and normal course (today high school). The aforementioned college begins with the aim of educating girls prepared to be housewives, wives, mothers, as well as primary teachers, to take care of the education of the children. It aimed at a religious and philosophical formation, the application of ethical and moral instruments capable of instilling in the students a way of being and acting, according to a model idealized by the confessional colleges, which did not allow any free space for idleness. For this research, the objective is to analyze how the symbolic control of the "self”, by a specific confessional school and historically contextualized, can validate social interests, differences and inequalities. To achieve this goal, I elaborated on the following specific objectives: to historicize the formation of the confessional mentality in school practice, indicating the convergence of interests between regional elites and the Catholic Church; discuss gender relations within the educational institution that is the object of this research; to understand the scope of the symbolic domination of such an institution in the memory of the former students, as well as to elaborate a concept of sociomoral screening forged from the observed empirical and historical facts. I emphasize that, being the object of the CSJ study, I have a corpus that includes oral testimonies, memory and bureaucratic-administrative documents, as well as the intertwining of the Catholic religion with the politics of the time. For this purpose, I placed documents in the archives of the college, a private archive of the Association of the Capuchin Missionary Sisters, the Council of Caxias and the Diocesan Curia of St. Louis, as well as Oral History through statements by former students. It is worth mentioning that the CSJ has, although much of it has been deteriorated, a large patrimonial documentation that founded the research. The access made available by the college and the Association in the light of the research was essential for the development of this work. The investigation comprises the intersection 1940-1960, also emphasizing the period of the creation of the college, 1937 and has as its theoretical contribution Bourdieu, Goffman, Le Goff, Foucault and others.