School desks models proposed by the General Direction of Public Instruction of Portugal (1877): the reference of The Vienna Universal Exhibition

ABSTRACT In the present article it is admitted that the material culture constitutes an essential source to get to know the past of schools. According to this view, several models of school desks proposed by the General Direction of Public Instruction of Portugal in the year of 1877 are analyzed. One of the defended ideas is that the diffusion of the mentioned models is legitimized in the reference to the foreign experience, namely, to a model of school desk (system of Kunze) presented in the Universal Exhibition of Vienna of Austria (1873). Since the school desk is one of the exponents of the student's officialisation process, what is observed in the host context is that the permeability to the conveyed knowledge (e.g., the external model) is minimal. In other words, a resistance to the classification and standardization created by universal exhibitions is observed at local level; expression, among others, of a certain pedagogical reality.