Religious Education in Brazilian schools: historical alliances and conflicts

Abstract

Analytical elements that relate processes of juridical regulation and school control on Religious Education are provided. The methodology is based on documentary and bibliographic research. Chronology extends from the colonial period to the 1930s and shows that alliances and clashes on Religious Education in Brazilian education history were nurtured from the start through the influence of the Catholic Church, ecclesiastical authorities, several institutions and intellectual defenders of religious values and principles. The principle aspects which foregrounded the basis for the setting and characterization of the controversy and forms of Brazilian school organization and the Religious Education may be perceived during the Brazilian Empire period up to the 1930s within the Republican Period. They were based on the emergence and consolidation of antagonism between religion and secularism, highlighting the role of the State in its cultural training and schooling of the population as one of the central factors of the debate.