Educação e Ideologia: uma análise crítica dos fundamentos teóricos e metodológicos da extensão rural no Brasil (1953-1974)
Abstract
The theme of this thesis is the history of the Rural Extension agency in Brazil. The aim is to
analyze the theoretical and methodological foundations that guided the training activities of
rural extension workers between 1953 and 1974. In 1953, extension was organized and
supervised by the Agricultural Technical Offices (ETA) and by the Credit Associations and
Rural Assistance (ACAR's), and in 1974, it was the milestone of creation of the Brazilian
Company of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (EMBRATER), which was
responsible for absorbing the entire structure of the Brazilian Association of Credit and Rural
Assistance (ABCAR) from 1956 Presenting a philanthropic rhetoric, the Rural Extension
sought to disseminate agricultural teachings called “useful” and practical to the population,
with a view to boosting production and “improving the quality of life in the countryside”.
Through the premise of forming an ideal type of rural producer, suited to the precepts of
modernization, for that, it was necessary to overcome the barrier that Brazilian agriculture
imposed for modernization and industrial advancement. Several institutions, such as: Alliance
for Progress, American International Association, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation, World
Bank, Ford Foundation, among other civil society associations, made use of a bourgeois
modernizing project with conservative characteristics, which had a pedagogical practice that
involved several areas of knowledge: psychology, sociology, philosophy, administration and
economics. This knowledge was mobilized with a view to training rural extensionists, organic
intellectuals of capital, for the purpose of spreading capitalism in the countryside. Innovative
diffusionism, originating from the standards and values of imperialist nations, was another
work methodology developed by Rural Extension in the period studied and which resulted in
transformations in the way of life in rural areas and which were defining for the permanence
or exclusion of workers in the field. The central hypothesis of this thesis is that Rural
Extension in Brazil has appropriated several theoretical conceptions and methodological tools
in the extension training process to guarantee the consolidation of capitalism in the
countryside. The race for the “training” of organic intellectuals, via Extensionist Training
Centers, in the context of the Cold War, had as its objective the production of active
consensus on the periphery and voluntary submission to the project of conservative
modernization. To ensure increased production efficiency in the field, Rural Extension
appropriated technical and business training methodologies, supported by Allen's Four Steps
and the TWI system. One of the main objectives was to form a leadership, supervision and
instruction board, capable of training and influencing rural producers in an environment of
tranquility and security for the adaptation of the workforce to the demands of capital.
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