THE PROCESS OF FEMINIZATION OF TEACHING IN BRAZIL AT THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: COEDUCATION AND MIXED SCHOOLS

AbstractThis study aims to understand the process of feminization of teaching with the central focus on its relationship with the coeducation. Therefore, I analyse some intellectuals, teachers and authorities' speeches that defended the coeducation's practice in public primary schools and I search to show how such speeches did echo in society, leading to its materialization in educational legislation by the middle of the nineteenth century. The text brings a comparison between the actions implemented in the Court and in the Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso and Paraná Provinces, enunciating speeches and the legislation. The interpretation of the sources used to suggest that the debates and routing around the coeducation were central element to the process of teaching's feminization. Around them, an increasing number of individuals, like authorities, teachers and intellectuals, put themselves in defense of women's work in primary teaching, leading to create the legal bases that ensured/encouraged female participation in schools.