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Qualification rules for female secretaries are analyzed within the context of the education for professions in the 1960s and 1970s, featuring two Brazilian handbooks, namely, Manual da secretária moderna [Handbook for the modern female secretary], by Helena Montezuma, and Você, secretária: um manual para o desenvolvimento profissional, [You, female secretary: Handbook for professional development], by Neris Bertocco and Angela Schneider Loyola. Discussions are undertaken on the manner the educational discourse for working as a female secretary occurred. Relationships are investigated between female education and the conforming, moralizing and modeling performance in work, coupled to the construction of the profession´s culture with new significations for the 1970s. Results showed a type of education accompanied by the persistence of tradition on the feminine roles, with great difficulties for rupturing the shackles of female conditions in society.  

Editorial da Revista Acta Scientiarum. Education

Sportive, militaristic, disciplinarian, uncritical... these adjectives are used to describe negatively traditional Physical Education. The above brought forth immediate interest in checking whether such criticism was well founded and triggered a brief discussion on the possibility of using traditional elements in current school Physical Education. Accordingly, research in the history of Physical Education inBrazilto justify such criticism was endeavored. Further, Didactics was analyzed to foreground traditional Pedagogy and apply the concept to Physical Education so that it could also be called traditional. Certain criticism for such traditionalism was investigated to determine whether it was correctly well founded. Finally, a conclusion was reached that if certain criticism was traditional, other types were ambiguous. There is actually an important conceptual confusion when the term traditional is used in Physical Education. It may be suggested that traditional Physical Education still has a place in current Physical Education in the school. 

The theory of professions according to Max Weber (1864-1920), who conceives bureaucratization as a necessity and as an expression of the modern State, is analyzed. The process of teaching professionalization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is focused. Current paper deals with three aspects: 1st – profession, craft, occupation: etymology, conceptualization and contexts; 2nd – Max Weber: biography and his theory on professions in the modern world; 3rd – Is there a Weberian understanding on the teaching profession? Professions developed throughout the 19th century and Weber’s theory arose in the early 20th century. Current investigation on the teaching profession focuses on the relationships between teaching and the historic and educational aspects which the teaching profession took during the 20th century as a result of the rational objectivity developed by the State. His reflections about professions reveal that professional groups are formed by political, economic, and social strategies, with special emphasis on the role of the State as a regulator for homogeneity and regularity in political and administrative terms.

In the wake of the publication of María Victoría Peralta´s important work on the establishment of pre-school education in Chile and Bolivia in mid-19th century, current analysis describes briefly the political-educational situation in Chile in that historical moment. The controversy between the secular education of the teaching state of that time and the Catholic education, representing the liberty of teaching, is emphasized. The above is similar to the debate which is occurring in Chile nowadays, or rather, between public education and private education.

Current article briefly discusses issues related to the devaluation of teaching (and consequent crisis in teachers´ education programs in Brazil) and to some government initiatives including Higher Education Institutions and Public Policies, to valorize the teaching profession and overcome crises. Based on the Program for Teaching Education, organized by a University of the Greater São Paulo, Brazil, and on the author’s experience in PIBID (Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação à Docência – Institutional Scholarship for New Teachers), the essay provides the positive impacts, contradictions and some considerations on its implementation foregrounded on the written record of teachers´ testimonials on the Program. 

Interviews by school authorities from five public primary schools inSão Paulo,São Paulo State,Brazilwere analyzed. The contents of the interviews by school principals and pedagogical coordinators investigated (1) the manner they understood bullying, especially with regard to their determinations; (2) their proposals for combating the problem; (3) the relationship between their understanding of the phenomenon and the suggestions against it. Results showed that the authorities that perceived the social determination on school violence had the best structured suggestions against the phenomenon, with regard to its understanding by students and teachers. On the other hand, others, foregrounded on a more reductionist stance which made difficult the perception of bulling within the school milieu, suggested activities which were not relevant to the factors that produced it and thus not efficacious in their attacking the phenomenon. 

Homilies, a hybrid genre of Literature, dated from the 2nd century and extensively used in the 4th and 5th centuries, were one of the main tools employed by the ecclesiastical elite to convert the urban population at the end of Antiquity. It was only by the Late Antiquity that homilies were largely used to broadcast the Gospel precepts before a growing audience. Since the Church could not count on schools to stabilize the newly converts from Paganism and Judaism, the Christian leaders developed proselytism and missionary actions based on an excellent use of rhetoric by means of skillful preachers. The author discusses how homilies contributed towards the spiritual formation of Christians, with special reference to the rules that regulated the usage of the body in the church by laypeople, in contrast to the modalities of bodily exposure in the polis. John Chrysostom's pastoral work and the special case of Antioch in the last decades of the 4th century will be investigated. 

The Order of Preachers, which emerged in the early decades of the thirteenth century, was engaged throughout the period in the formation of a model characterized by studies as its main basis. The process was characterized by clashes within and outside the Order, specifically comprising practices related to education and study. Current investigation demonstrates how censorship directed to the very thing that gave legitimacy to the Order and to scholarship reinforced its identity. Certain instrumental concepts, such as the notions of identity and censorship and the ideas on freedom and power, were investigated. Content analysis was undertaken by crossing official documents and the minutes of the General and Provincial Chapters so that the relationship between the several instances of power within the Dominican order could be understood. The contextualization of these documents within a broader intellectual scenario, especially within the university milieu of the 13th century, could be established. Results showed that censorship worked as an identity tool even though what was censored and the intensity of censorship varied according to a greater or lesser need for institutionalization and consequently the demarcation of the Order of Preachers´ identity. 

In the Roman-Germanic kingdoms from the sixth century onwards, Bishops’s activities were mainly concentrated on the preservation and expansion of the Christian faith and the reorganization of ecclesiastical institutions. Among several initiatives, a huge material investment, comprising monastic rules, sermons, Mirrors for princes and hagiographies, was undertaken. In the Visigoth kingdom, Isidore of Seville is acknowledged as the man who enhanced his participation within the process of ecclesiastical restructuring, with great attention towards the moral and intellectual qualifications of the clergy. Thus, current essay deals with the main allusions to ecclesiastical authorities in De Ecclesiasticis Officiis and Sententiarum libri tres within the vast work produced by the Spaniard, coupled to their relationship with the idealized model of a bishop. 

Editorial

Current article discusses management forms of educational policies for higher education system focusing on the management contract used by the Program for the Support of Restructuring and Expansion Plans of Brazilian Federal Universities (REUNI). It is foregrounded on the analysis that educational policies must consider the historical contexts in which they were created and implemented, and which have lately been marked by sociopolitical and technological changes leading to reforms in the national States, with repercussions on the educational field. The bibliographical and documental study, developing a contextualized interpretation of the subject, shows that the adoption of a new management model, based on the theoretical frameworks of the new public management with business principles, has brought a new configuration to the management of the public universities where the management contract is the main operationalization instrument. The REUNI program, by adopting an organization model based on this paradigm, aimed at the efficiency and efficacy of the services, changed the organizational form of the universities, giving priority to a commercial-like relationship rather than insisting on its social function and its concern for citizenship training. 

Current paper is the partial result of a research, funded by CNPq, on the History of the Italian Ethnic Community Schools inBrazil (1875-1945). Investigating and mapping school organizations established by Italian immigrants in the state ofRio Grande doSul,Brazil, the text was built on Cultural History Studies and methodically processed by documental analysis, especially consular reports, documents of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Relations, newspapers, photographs and others. Several school initiatives may be found in different regions ofRio Grande do Sul, occupied by Italian immigrants or their descendants. Many were only temporary procedures and all were poorly systematized, albeit significant. They were different when installed in urban or rural areas. Moreover, they reveal the singularities and specific understanding of the importance of schooling. Since they were spaces for the constitution of Italian identity, Catholicity or even just for simply learning to read, write and calculate, it was an important educational space within the State´s scenario of the period. 

In the early twentieth century, the Italian representative Vittorio Buccelli toured the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, at the invitation of the local Republican Party (PRR). The report of his travels in southern Brazil was published in Milan, in 1906, and presented at the international exhibition that was taking place in that city. Marked by the 19th and 20th Italian expansionist policies and by PRR propaganda, the report exalts the Rio Grande do Sul as an immigration space with great conditions for the immigrants´ upward social mobility. Buccelli wanted to create the image of a European Brazil, or better, a geographic and human area with a quality of life much higher than that of the old continent, or rather, untainted by the social problems which were afflicting Europe. In his elaboration of a positive representation of the Rio Grande, conceived as a propitious place to receive immigrant workforce and investments from Italian capitalists, the image that the author establishes with regard to the school proves his vainglorious discourse. 

Current research analyzes Anísio Teixeira´s ideas for the Brazilian high school as provided by his conferences given in the 1950s and later published by him. Although it may be stated that Teixeira scantily changed positions taken early in life, it seems that during this particular decade he provided a more comprehensive notion of the historical process for a national education. Current investigation discusses not merely his formulations for high school, which during that period also included the four stages of the primary school, but a global formulation denominated the ´Brazilian school standard´. Although various levels of schools remained segmented, in his opinion these segments had a lively inter-communication.  

Late Antiquity is a moment of very important transformations in the Roman world. The institutional and social advancement of the Christian Church was brought about through its alliance with the Roman state. This made Christianity the official religion of the Empire under Theodosius. Simultaneously Germanic populations were incorporated into the late imperial society. A great challenge was posed to these people, or rather, the interaction of these agents to the Roman-Hellenistic Paideia, the late antique cultural world. Current article reflects on the efforts made by late former historical knowledge to incorporate within its narrative dominions the tradition brought by the ‘barbarians’. Since the fifth century they had settled and founded many kingdoms in what was, until then, the western part of theRoman Empire. The above will be discussed through the historical works of Gregory of Tours and Jordanes.

Current research investigates the establishment of educational institutions in the wake of European migration toBrazil. The study focuses on the rise and on the transformations of schools in the German immigration settlement area in Santa Catarina between 1897 and 1930. Research is based on such documents as the reports of the Hanseatic Colonization Company, legislation and published material. Results indicated that the emergence of schools was due to the initiative of the immigrants and to the settlement company involved. The schools’ pedagogical characterization was marked by a European curriculum and use of German. Gradually another type of formation started replacing the older one. It was focused on regionalism and the compulsory use of the Portuguese language. The condition of German schools based on ethnic-oriented social relations linked to German-European culture were being oriented to teaching ideas based on technology and on the Brazilian government´s guidelines for more Brazilian-directed features that eventually generated a new identity, or rather, a German-Brazilian identity. 

The initiatives of Italian immigrants for the education and instruction of their children during the period of the great immigration (1876-1920), with special attention to the Italian community of Petropolis, are discussed. Methodological procedures comprised historical documentary research in which records were sought in Brazilian and Italian sources to investigate the educational circumstances and schooling provided to Italian immigrants and to understand the social, cultural and historical relationships in which they were inserted. The Italian culture became present in Brazilian society through the works of unknown peasants and of men and women who left their traits in architecture, fine arts, theatre and industrial enterprises, which are still extant. The immigrants founded ‘mutual aid associations’ and instituted various forms of protection and solidarity among their communities, which maintained Italian schools for associates in several places.  

Italian ethnic schools in the south of the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, in the early decades of the twentieth century are discussed. The establishment of ethnic schools in the southern Brazilian settlements, influenced by the predominant Italian ethnicity, was favored by the precariousness of public education inBrazil. Schools subsidized by the Italian government were introduced in the regions colonized by European immigrants and their descendants. Documentary sources showed that these schools received subsidies fromItaly in cash and books, and were visited and inspected by the Italian educational authorities. The Secretariat for Italian Schools in the south of the state of Santa Catarina was established in Urussanga in 1900 since the town was the main Italian-Brazilian center of the state in the early twentieth century.

In the Middle Ages, the increasing autonomy on the nature of Beauty may be defined by three aspects that underscore the speculative approach on the concept: first, the Neoplatonic root in strict relationship with the Good (kalon); second, the Augustinian approach with its relationship between species and order, the factors that shine in created Beauty from the original divine source; third, the interpretation that predominated within Scholasticism and which gave to Beauty its transcendental beauty and established an intellectual distinction between the pulchrum and the bonum. Current research analyzes St Bonaventure´s position on the three perspectives and foregrounds the elaboration of the concept as from ‘light’ as a substantial form which traces a transcendental pedagogical scheme in which concepts and light bring accession modes to the knowledge of the world and its divine causal origin.