BODY EDUCATION, MODERNITY AND THE SALESIANS IN BRAZILIAN SCHOOLS IN THE EARLY OF 20TH CENTURY

ABSTRACT Which would be the best strategy for body education in a Catholic institution? This was a debate that settled modern discourses and religious principles in Brazilian schools in the early decades of the 20th century. Analyzing this context can help us better understand the relationship between the projects of modernity and religions in conciliation in Brazil in that period. Based on this scenario, this study aims to observe how the body practices were used in teaching in the Salesian schools. As a temporal cut we have selected the first three decades of 20th century, a crucial moment to the structuring of physical education in Brazilian education. It concludes that the Salesians didn’t let their religious principles, but they accommodated in their educational project, corporal practices that until then were strange, since it were methodical, rationalized, but provided the divulgation to the elites of their educational project, markedly Catholic, but at the same time current and dynamic, consistent with the modern times in early 20th century.