Military Coup, Brazil, 1964: The teachers of Rio Grande do Sul in the newspapers

Abstract

What did the newspapers publish about the teachers of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the period before the military coup d’état in 1964? And what discourses came up immediately after that? This articles presents the results of an investigation of three important local newspapers in that time (Correio do Povo, Última Hora and Zero Hora), particularly their editorials, news stories and other news focused on the teachers. In the months prior to the military coup d’état there were discourses announcing ruptures, a structural transformation in Brazilian society. Adult literacy campaigns inspired by the Paulo Freire Method received special attention in the newspapers. Various movements were developing at the time, sometimes anarchically. But then came the coup. Power networks that had supported forces opposed to the status quo were now unable to subsist. A “new way of being based on order” was created. The data analysis shows that every truth regime truth is connected to a system of power that produces and supports it. Forty years later one might ask: what other coups, of a symbolic nature or not, have the teachers continued to suffer not only in southern Brazil, but also in other areas of this country?

Key words: educational history, teaching, discourses, power relations.