Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 21 Issue 5

state to know these phenomena quantitatively was still insufficient. V. S chool S tatistics and the V isibility of F ailure The production of school statistics was improved throughout the 1930s, expanding the categories collected and advancing in terms of techniqu e 8 . In 1930, the Ministry of Education was created and soon a division specifically designed for the production of educational statistics was proposed to be part of i t 9 In 1936, in the above-mentioned bulletin Failures in elementary school , an analysis of failures in elementary schools of São Paulo was carried out by means of the school statistics available for the period. . In 1937, the creation of INEP gave a fresh impetus in this direction, since one of the functions of the new body was to conduct studies on the educational situation of the country, including the organization of more reliable and complete statistics. In 1931 the Inter-Administrative Agreement of Educational and Related Statistics was signed, an unprecedented initiative in the country designed to articulate efforts between federal agencies in conducting these surveys. This agreement will effectively allow to conduct more systematic and regular surveys covering the entire national territory. Also, it will press federal units to seek these data, fill out forms, and follow standard categories. Although this process is full of flaws and gaps, often highlighted in reports by those in charge of data compilations, it provided some organic quality in statistical production and resulted in a significant amount of information on enrollments. These figures allowed to develop interpretations and analyses of school movement, expansion of enrollments, and flow irregularities over the next decade. Beside the effective expansion of access to school observed after 1930, the possibility of having a greater amount of reputable, good quality statistical data allowed to see school failure, repetition and dropout as statistically significant phenomena. The very systematic publication of figures alone allowed to see the flow distortions, which perhaps had existed for a long time but without the visibility provided by the numbers. The increase in the absolute number of enrollments will also assume, by the mere size of the figures, a surprising quality. 8 This is a process that Brazilian statistics in general go through in the same period. We have, for example, the creation of IBGE in 1937, experts’ agreement on the higher quality of the 1940 census data, increasing mathematization of demographic procedures in the following decades. For further details about the organization of statistics in Brazil, see Senra (2006; 2014). 9 In 1931, with the creation of the Ministry of Education, the General Board of Information, Statistics and Dissemination was founded. In 1939, it was renamed as Statistical Service of Education and Health (SEES). The study focused on the data of 17 municipalities in the region of the State capital. In this region, in 1935, of the 116,060 children taking exams, 48,824 failed, which meant a 42% failure rate. The analyses in the Bulletin show that Almeida Junior’s consideration of the statistics is not naive. Indeed, the author states that “failures are accurate numerical data; but the criteria that determine them, as we know, change from school to school” (São Paulo, 1936, p.3). He argued that it was necessary to understand that “there are ‘lowish’ decision makers, who are content with little, but there are also “highish” ones, willing to tighten the belt of passes” (São Paulo, 1936, p.3). He thus expresses the ability to take numbers only partially, due to variations such as the one mentioned. With regard to failures, for example, he does agree that they indicate a problem in the state school system, but his argumentative emphasis is otherwise as he mentions, by the way, that “promotion is important because it means efficiency of informative education – but this does not exhaust school functions” (São Paulo, 1936, p.3). Reports in the INEP, published between 1939 and 1944 by the federal governmen t 10 10 With regard to the documents at the federal level, in the research that supports the argument presented here we analyzed especially those produced by the Education and Health Statistical Office (SEES), coordinated by Teixeira de Freitas, and the National Institute of Pedagogical Studies (INEP), organized by Lourenço Filho. Both bodies were subordinate to the Ministry of Education. In the former, we analyzed the series “Teaching in Brazil,” published between 1939 and 1946. In the latter, INEP Bulletins between 1939 and 1944 were analyzed. In 1944, the INEP created the Brazilian Journal of Pedagogical Studies, whose articles have also been considered in this analysis. Another journal we consulted was the Brazilian Statistics Journal, published since 1940. In addition to these documents, some books of authors who took part in discussions about educational statistics in the period were consulted too. , have also featured a discussion of the flow of students in elementary school. In these publications, the primary axis of the analysis is the enrollment of children in primary education. The most common is the comparison of enrollment totals at various times. From this, the enrollment growth rates in each state are calculated and then compared to the national average. In the Bulletins, the discussion on school performance often refers to the ability to enroll a significant contingent of the school population. The issue of passes rarely appears as worthy of attention. They are, however, present at times. In Bulletin No. 19, for example, there are data on growth of primary education institutions, graduated teachers, general enrollments, and information on pass and course completions: “It should be noted that the movement of passes in general, and course completions, especially in ordinary elementary school, showed, in the same period, a higher growth than that of enrollments” (Ministry of Education and Health, 1942, p.15). From this it follows: “Not only more Volume XXI Issue V Version I 50 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 C © 2021 Global Journals School Grade Repetition in Brazil: History of the Configuration of a Political and Educational Problem