School education that disciplines and standardizes: Luiz Antonio dos Santos Lima and corrective measures present in Mental Hygiene and Education (1927)

Abstract

This work examines the medical and educational thoughts proposed by Luiz Antonio dos Santos Lima (1890-1961) in his doctoral thesis Mental Hygiene and Education, written in 1927. It discusses his conception of education and the mental hygiene practices he proposed to be inserted into Brazilian educational institutions in the early twentieth century. The discourse analysis proposed by Foucault allows us to emphasize the social context in which the hygienist movement was conceived and how the disciplinary and normalizing powers of that time were present in author's thought. The relevance of this work is the analysis of a teaching proposal that was present in the understanding of Brazilian hygienist thought and, focused on national progress, had as its goal the healthy development of each schoolchild.