Post-doctoral Fellowship Educational Literature

We hereby announce the opening of a Post-Doctorate Fellow position at the School of Education of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. The post is linked to the São Paulo Research Foundation-FAPESP Thematic Project entitled KNOWLEDGES AND PRACTICES AT THE BORDERS: for a transnational history of education (1810-...) coordinated by Diana Gonçalves Vidal. Within the main project we welcome applications for the development of the subproject Borders of the pedagogical discourse: between libraries and classrooms.
In her work entitled Saberes em viagem nos manuais pedagógicos [Knowledges in travel in pedagogical manuals], Vivian Batista da Silva makes use of the metaphor of the journey to refer to the transposition of pedagogical texts and ideas from one place to another, and also to characterize the distance between the production of a text and the gesture of its appropriation.

To think on a journey is to think the shift of knowledges that disperse and multiply, configuring a plurality of meanings (SILVA, 2018, p.25). The circulation and transposition of knowledges gives rise in its way to an imagined community in which the diffusion of the modes of conceiving education takes place, constituting reference centers from which ideas are disseminated. Still according to Silva, the pedagogical manuals comprise a kind of literature that is intermediary between the written production of the major authors and what goes on in the classroom.

The approach of pedagogical manuals can be understood as a transnational adventure, since they echo ideas that are foreign to it; at the same time, they intend to have a local reach. In this sense, it is a material that works at the border between the major authors and the words and actions of the teacher. To think about the Paulo Bourroul library will require a dialogue with previous works - such as those by Vivian Batista da Silva (2018), Diana Gonçalves Vidal (2005) and Margarida Louro Felgueiras (2010), among many others -, which bring important elements to the discussion about the school culture or cultures in their relation to the constitution of the library in an Institute of education.

Another research that cannot fail to become a reference for the present investigation is the MA dissertation by Marina Gugliotti Pestana entitled Colecionando livros, formando mestres: a biblioteca pedagógica da Escola Normal de São Paulo (1883) [Collecting books, forming masters: the pedagogical library of the Normal School of São Paulo (1883)] presented to the Pontifical Catholic University in 2011 under the supervision of Prof Circe Bittencourt. According to Pestana (2011), the archives of the Paulo Bourroul Library were organized after a trip of Prof Bourroul to France. Since then, they integrated the Pedagogical Library of the Normal School of São Paulo, which in turn, with the Republic, became known as the Caetano de Campos Institute of Education.
As Pestana (2011, p.12) says, the library comprises around 8000 items and did not receive any technical care throughout the years. Her dissertation mapped out the main works referenced by the 4th Chair of Methodology and Pedagogy. However, the contents of the works were not sufficiently analyzed in the dissertation, although it gave a vast overview of those works and how they were organized. Within this thematic project, which has as one of its objectives to classify, catalogue and digitalize the archives of the Paulo Bourroul and Macedo de Soares libraries, the aim of this Post-Doctorate Fellowship is to study the pedagogical knowledge is inscribed in the books belonging to the Paulo Bourroul library, as well as to inspect - through the reading of the reports written by Prof Paulo Bourroul, as well as of the documentation related to public instruction and to the Normal School, and, finally, of teaching regulations and programs - the reading strategies through which the appropriation of those works of reference took place.

In view of the above, the activities of the successful applicant to this Post-Doctorate Fellowship position will include:
1) To carry out an assessment of the pedagogical works belonging to the Paulo Bourroul library;
2) to study the contents of the books indicated, based on the following categories: 2.1) Teaching methods; 2.2) The role of the teacher; 2.3) Subjects to be taught; 2.4) Pupils; 2.5) Pedagogical discourse;
3) Documentary research to investigate the existence of evidences of the reading of the works belonging to the Normal School library by teachers and pupils. We understand that the activities of the Post-Doctorate Fellow will be conducted in close contact with the main researchers of Axis 1, and that they will interface with the theoretical production of the other professors involved in the thematic project as a whole.

Bibliographical references:
FELGUEIRAS, Margarida Louro; VIEIRA, Carlos Eduardo. Cultura escolar, migrações e cidadania. Porto: Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências da Educação, 2010.
PESTANA, Marina Gugliotti. Colecionando livros, formando mestres: a Biblioteca Pedagógica da Escola Normal de São Paulo (1883). PUC/São Paulo: [dissertação de mestrado], 2011.
SILVA, Vivian Batista. Saberes em viagem nos manuais pedagógicos: construções da escola em Portugal e no Brasil (1870-1970). São Paulo: UNESP, 2018.
VIDAL, Diana Gonçalves. Culturas escolares: estudo sobre práticas de leitura e escrita na escola pública primária (Brasil e França, finais do século XIX). Campinas: Autores Associados, 2005.