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

VI. F inal R emarks This article was intended to argue that, although school exams and student failure existed since the installation of modern school in Brazil, even in the colonial period, is only from the 1930s that poor school results enter the political agenda as a problem of national education. To admit the existence of school exams does not mean that all the students were subjected to these rituals. In the nineteenth century, only those deemed fit by teachers and education inspectors, from little explicit criteria, took the exams. At such times, they could pass or fail – simply, fully or with distinction. As compulsory schooling consolidates and it is established that the annual grades should organize the paces and times to learn, during a slow process that is only defined in the Republic, a decisive process of change in school culture is witnessed. In this sense, the circulation of specialized discourses of teaching efficiency and the normal standards in children’ school performance ends up in a heavily prescriptive feature of practices and institutional behaviors. Tests and the primacy of homogeneous classes are part of this process and significantly mark the relations between students, teachers and subjects. It is, however, linked to the production of more systematic, higher quality educational statistics that one realizes the existence of a political and educational debate on issues related to students flow through the school, especially on failure and dropout, in the 1930s and 1940s. In the following decades – 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980 – it is known that the issue continued to be discussed with characteristics that deserve to be better understood, which motivates the continuation of research on the subject. It is notable, though, the force with which this same issue has come back to the debate now, after more than two decades (following the constituent and the constitution of 1988), whose emphasis on educational discussion and the proposition of policies for education tended to the design of an inclusive school, open to diversity, instead of the selective and exclusive school that was established in Brazil during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We may not have been sufficiently aware of the fact that, in the context of schools and social debate, this discussion has not occurred with the same emphasis that it had in academic and intellectual circles of education. R eferences R éférences R eferencias 1. ALMEIDA JÚNIOR, A. Repetência ou promoção automática? Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos, Rio de Janeiro, n.65, p.3-15, jan.-mar. 1957. 2. BESSON, Jean-Louis. A ilusão das estatísticas. São Paulo: UNESP, 1995. 3. BOURDIEU, Pierre. Descrever e prescrever: as condições e os limites da eficácia política. A economia das trocas lingüísticas: o que falar quer dizer. 2ª ed. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1998. p.117-126. 4. FOUCAULT, Michel. Vigiar e Punir . 10.ed. Petrópolis/RJ: Vozes, 1987. 5. FOUQUET, Annie. As estatísticas no debate social. In: BESSON, Jean-Louis. A ilusão das estatísticas. São Paulo: UNESP, 1995. p.135-148. 6. FREITAS, M. A. Teixeira de. Dispersão demográfica e escolaridade. Revista Brasileira de Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, n.3, p.497-527, jul.-set. 1940a. 7. ______. A evasão escolar no ensino primário brasileiro. Revista Brasileira de Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, n.4, p.697-722, out.-dez. 1940b. 8. ______. Ainda a evasão escolar no ensino primário brasileiro. Revista Brasileira de Estatística , Rio de Janeiro, n.7, p.553-642, jul.-set. 1941. 9. GALLEGO, Rita de Cássia. Usos do tempo: a organização das atividades de alunos e professores nas escolas primárias paulistas (1890-1929). São Paulo: USP, 2003. Dissertação (mestrado em Educação). Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, Universidade de São Paulo. 10. GOUVEIA, Maria Cristina Soares de. Tempos de aprender: a produção histórica da idade escolar. Revista Brasileira de História da Educação , São Paulo, n. 8, 2004, p. 265-289. 11. HAWAT, Joseane Leonardi Craveiro El. Os saberes elementares matemáticos nas escolas isoladas de Porto Alegre: avaliações, programas de ensino e livros escolares (1873-1919). Porto Alegre: UFRGS, 2015. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação). Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. 12. JACOMINI, Márcia Aparecida. Educar sem reprovar. São Paulo: Cortez, 2010. 13. JINZENJI, Mônica Yumi. As escolas públicas de primeiras letras de meninas: das normas às práticas. Revista Brasileira de História da Educação, São Paulo, n.22, p.169-198, jan.-abr. 2010. 14. KINGDON, John W. Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1995. 15. KOSELLECK, Reinhart. Futuro passado. Contribuição à semântica dos tempos históricos, Rio de Janeiro, Contraponto/Editora PUCRio, 2006. 16. LIMA, Ana Laura Godinho; VIVIANI, Luciana Maria. Conhecimentos especializados sobre os problemas de rendimento escolar: um estudo de manuais de psicologia e da Revista de Educação . História da Educação, Porto Alegre, v. 19, n. 46, p. 93-112, mai.-ago. 2015. 17. LOURENÇO FILHO. “A evasão escolar no ensino primário brasileiro”. Revista Brasileira de Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, n.7, p.539-552, jul.-set. 1941. Volume XXI Issue V Version I 53 ( ) 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