ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/ssp.2025.12.001
Education and Power in Imperial Brazil: Tensions between Liberalism, Conservatism, and Pedagogical Methods in the Nineteenth Century
Carlos Bauer
Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação (PPGE), da Universidade Nove de Julho (Uninove), São Paulo 01504-001, Brazil.
*Corresponding author: Carlos Bauer
Published: November 7,2025
Abstract
This essay examines the configuration of the Brazilian school system during the Imperial period, articulating the perspectives of Maria Lúcia Spedo Hilsdorf on the history of the school in the 19th century, the reflections of André Paulo Castanha on teaching methods, and the interpretation of Dermeval Saviani on the far-reaching educational legacy. Furthermore, it integrates the historical-social reading of Caio Prado Júnior and Florestan Fernandes, which allows situating the educational question within the broader framework of Brazilian social formation, characterized by conservative modernization and the permanence of the slave order. The analysis shows that education was a decisive space for ideological and political dispute. The 1827 Law and the adoption of the mutual method responded not only to pedagogical demands but also to the need to discipline and moralize the popular classes within a nation project that preserved colonial hierarchies. In the conservative phase of the Empire, with the creation of the Colégio Pedro II and the centralized control of secondary and higher education, a dual educational structure was consolidated: on one side, an elitist, humanistic, and propaedeutic formation; on the other, mass, cheap, and low-quality primary instruction, entrusted to the provinces. From 1870, with the so-called Second Liberalism and the abolitionist impetus, intuitive methods inspired by Pestalozzi and Froebel were introduced, along with experiences such as kindergartens and night schools. However, these advances were applied in a limited manner and did not challenge the social bases of inequality. As warned by Saviani, Fernandes, and Prado Júnior, pedagogical innovations were absorbed by a process of conservative modernization that modernized forms without transforming structures. It is concluded that the educational legacy of the 19th century was the consolidation of a structural duality: a mass, precarious, and exclusionary system, versus a selective elitist formation. This contradiction, ges-tated in Imperial Brazil, projected its effects throughout the 20th century and is still reflected in the contemporary dilemmas of Brazilian education.
Keywords
History of Education; Brazilian Empire; Mutual Method. Liberalism; Conserva-tism; Conservative Modernization
References
Castanha, A. (2018). Os métodos de ensino no Brasil do século XIX. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323273357_Os_metodos_de_ensino_no_Brasil_do_seculo_XIX
Fernandes, F. (1976). A revolução burguesa no Brasil: ensaio de interpretação sociológica. Zahar.
Hilsdorf, M. L. S. (2003). A escola brasileira no Império. In História da Educação Brasileira: leituras (pp. 39-53). Thomson.
Prado Júnior, C. (2000). Formação do Brasil contemporâneo. Companhia das Letras.
Saviani, D. (2007). O legado educacional do longo século XX brasileiro. In O legado educacional do século XX no Brasil (pp. 9-58). Autores Associados.
How to cite this paper
Education and Power in Imperial Brazil: Tensions between Liberalism, Conservatism, and Pedagogical Methods in the Nineteenth Century
How to cite this paper: Carlos Bauer. (2025). Education and Power in Imperial Brazil: Tensions between Liberalism, Conservatism, and Pedagogical Methods in the Nineteenth Century. Sociology & Social Policy, 2(3), 131-134.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/ssp.2025.12.001