Nationalisms and schooling : between italianity and brazility, disputes in the education of italian-gaucho people (Rs, Brazil, 1930-1945)

This study is a partial result of a research project on the history of school cultures of Italian schools in Brazil and aims to analyze the disputes experienced in schooling processes in the context of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, between the 1930s and 1940s of the twentieth century. On the one hand, the Italian fascist project which, using schools, newspapers, associations and other spaces of sociability of immigrants and descendants, sought, through the action of the consular network, to spread a sense of belonging to Fascist Italy. On the other hand, the public policies of the Brazilian Government, especially after 1930, were spreading and affirming the public school with Portuguese language teaching. Between the years of 1937 and 1942, numerous legislations restricted ethnic school initiatives and banned their operation in Brazil. The intention was the affirmation of a nationalist process of Brazility constitution. Ambiguities, negotiations, approximations and distancing between Gaucho and Italian authorities in this context and the process of schooling, considering that the processes of identity affirmation is relevant to understand the History of Education. The theoretical support is obtained in the Cultural History and History of Education, and the empirical field of investigation is diversified, considering for this thematic newspapers, photographs, legislation, correspondences and reports of consuls, teachers and inspectors, among others. Methodologically, documentary analysis was carried out. Understanding school processes and the constitution of identity processes between Italian immigrants and their descendants is relevant to the understanding of the plurality of school initiatives in the History of the Brazilian Education.