Teaching attribution and control of the work of rural primary teachers from the Foucault's perspective (Londrina, PR, 1961-1969)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to understand the teaching attributions and control mechanisms of rural elementary school teachers in Londrina between 1961 and 1969, from the perspective of Michel Foucault (2014). This is a bibliographical and documentary study, which combines the contributions of historiographical production and takes as its documentary source the minutes of pedagogical and extraordinary meetings of the Department of Education of the municipality of Londrina with the teachers of the time. It concludes that the vocational, missionary and selfless lay elementary school teachers, words that adjectivized them, were expected to be willing, aware of their duties and subject to the department's rules. In the 1960s, countless jobs included teaching duties that went beyond the strictly pedagogical. In the light of Foucault, the research points to discipline, activity control, hierarchical surveillance and normalizing sanctions as mechanisms for forging the desired teacher and controlling her work. However, the study considers that the insistence and constancy of control indicates the correlation of forces, the counter-conduct, indiscipline and resistance of rural primary school teachers in London in the 1960s.