Catholics for God and brazilians for their country: the indigenous people of the upper Rio Negro and Salesian School Education (1960-1980)

Abstract

This paper deals with the Salesian Order's offer of school education to the indigenous populations of the Upper Rio Negro, Amazonas state, Brazil, in the period between 1960 and 1980. Under the general perspective of colonization, the Salesian pedagogy is analyzed regarding the concept of teaching-learning following the behavior theories of education, thus the paper’s foundation is in the centrality of power and teaching knowledge which relegate the pupils to a passive condition in the learning process. Based on this, we analyzed the principals, the strategies, and the guidelines of the Salesian pedagogy, as well as foresee the existence of signs of resistance to the hierarchical inter-societal relationships.