O Ginásio Leopoldo e o processo de institucionalização do ensino secundário no distrito-sede de Iguaçu (1930-1950)

Abstract

This research seeks to investigate the process of institutionalization of secondary education in the district of Iguaçu through the history of Ginásio Leopoldo. A private institution created and maintained with municipal subsidy, with reference in 1930, the year of installation of the Gym, and 1950 the year in which the establishment started to offer the second cycle of the secondary course, changing from “Gymnasium” to becoming “Colégio Leopoldo”. We will analyze how local education is inserted in the macro relations established between the socioeconomic and political contexts of the time and the social function attributed to the secondary school in educational reforms in the “Era Vargas”. Through the reports of the local newspaper Correio da Lavoura and the analysis of the documentation of the private collection of Colégio Leopoldo, we sought to understand the relationship between schooling processes and economic and social development in the district of Iguaçu, considering that in the proposed period Iguaçu was permeated by the confluence between the rural and the urban. We seek to apprehend how this establishment was institutionalized as an urban improvement valued as a symbol of Iguaçu's “progress”, and we observed the relationship between the institution's pedagogical conceptions and practices as resources interested in influencing the society of its surroundings.