Education in Serro/MG, colonial Brazil (1702-1758)

We investigate the history of education in colonial Brazil based on the formation of the city of Serro, one of the first gold towns occupied by the Portuguese metropolis in the 18th century. From the starting point of the colonization of the Serro do Frio mines in 1702 – documented in the book of record of the mines by the clerk Lourenço Carlos Mascarenhas de Araújo, we narrate the tensions between the literate and illiterate, between the colonizers and colonized, between the discoverers, indigenous peoples and African slaves. We show that education occurred in this context through the spontaneous teaching that takes place in daily life, in relations with the patron, with the Senate of the Chamber, and in the corporations of mechanical workshops for the construction of churches, creating an urbanity marked by race, economics and policies. The methodology is historical microanalysis, that is a microhistorical approach, with a reconstruction of narratives from primary and secondary sources. In addition to the narrative that reconstituted the history of education which occurred in the clash between Brazil and Portugal, or between Serro and Portugal, we sought parallels with Norbert Elias’ concept of civilizing process, Max Weber’s definition of modern bureaucratization, and Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptualization of how symbolic power operates to elucidate how and in what way informal education occurred in that context.