Between the individual and the community: analysis of the School Civic Centers during the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1971-1985)

Abstract

This article analyzes School Civic Centers (CCE), created in public and private elementary schools, during Brazilian Civil–Military dictatorship from 1971 to 1985. School Civic Centers (CCE) were students’ organizations coordinated by counselors of Moral and Civic Education (EMC), a school subject created by Federal Decree no. 869/1969, regulated two years later by Decree-Law no. 68.065/1971, which set up the National Commission of morality and civic mindedness (CNMC). The effective legislation specific to this subject encouraged Teaching Institutions to develop what they called extracurricular activities for involving and engaging students in a range of activities, related to sports, leisure, civic and cultural education. The Centers aimed at encouraging the meeting between young students under the attentive eye of the school Management´s Supervisors and carrying out actions for fostering high values among the intellectual élite who served and elaborated the ideological elements of the system.The study analyzes, through available school documentation and oral statements, the way some school institutions adhered to and applied the official guidelines set out by the Ministry of Education. Some Schools were selected from Paraiba Valley Region, State of São Paulo, because they kept in their archives related documentation and, in some cases, the protagonists´ testimonies. Concerning analytical procedures, we have used theoretical (and methodical) references proposed by the historians Edward Palmer Thompson and Carlo Ginzburg, namely category of experience and signs, in the dialogue between the individual and the community, intrinsic to historical processes.

Key words: Brasil, Civil-military Dictatorship, Schools Civic Centers, Youth.