Study about eugenic educational forces in Brazil, during the first decades of the twentieth century

Abstract

This paper tries to rescue some principles of eugenic movement and examine the way the eugenic education was proposed in Brazil during the first decades of the 20th century, through historical analysis of the ‘social class’, ‘family’ and ‘eugenic education’ categories, discussed in 36 issues of the periodical called “Boletim de Eugenia” (1929-1931). It concludes that eugenic physicians proposed many measures to resolve social problems of the time, as a result from the industrialization and urbanization, which were explained through the natural differences among individuals, determinated by heredity. Focosing on the biological phenomenon, they denied the social contradictions and justified the class differences, proposing the eugenic recourse (multiplication of the eugenic families and restriction of the ones which were not eugenic) as possible alternative to aquieve the nacional progress. Important eugenic educational forces were configured in that time as well; however, due to the emphasis given to the biological paradigm, the eugenicists pointed out the limitations of any transformational function of society through education.