The sloyd import-export movement as a pedagogy for vocational education in Brazil

Abstract

This article looks at the dissemination of sloyd as a pedagogical approach in vocational education in Brazil, highlighting its importance in teacher training and technical education. As such, its general objective is to analyse the mechanisms of the diffusion of sloyd as a pedagogy for vocational education in Brazil, highlighting its relevance to teacher training and educational practice. Sloyd, which involves manual labour, is defended by Omer Buyse and Victor de Britto as essential for the integral development of students. As for the path of analysis, we used the ‘Theory of History’ (Rüsen, 2015) from which we analysed sources such as: ‘O Slöjd’ (Gonzaga, 1916), ‘A Escola Ativa e os Trabalhos Manuais’ (Fonseca, 1929) and newspapers catalogued in the National Library's Digital Collection of Newspapers and Magazines.  The results indicate that the construction of the sloyd import-export movement as a pedagogy for vocational education in Brazil took place through the pedagogical trips and circulation of Aprígio Gonzaga through Argentine vocational and primary schools, through constant dialogue with the American conception of sloyd and through reading Omer Buyse's work in the original French edition. In this way, sloyd was constructed as a pedagogy for vocational education and its dissemination.