Educação: uma porta aberta aos direitos políticos no Brasil (1870 - 1890).

Abstract

Brazilian public education during the 19th century was permeated by inequalities and social exclusions that caused consequences in the lives of many individuals. In this sense, this research seeks to highlight the characteristics of public education available in Brazil from 1870 to 1890, as well as the interests surrounding it in order to clarify the factors that would have been predominant for education to be established as a prerequisite for access to the right to vote in the country. Based on this, it discusses how public education provided to the population was structured before and after the creation of the Saraiva Law in 1881, which aimed to veto the participation of individuals without schooling in the electoral process. The methodology used is qualitative, based on bibliographic works that discuss the relationship between education and citizenship, and on the analysis of documents such as the Saraiva Law, parliamentary speeches, census data from 1872 and 1890; in addition, it relies on the concepts of "strategy" and "practice" by Certeau (2005). The results indicate that inequality in access to education promoted the maintenance of elite privileges, heightened illiteracy rates, and limited popular participation in political decisions.