The spaces for physical education on the secondary education in Paraná: a comparative study between the final years of the Vargas dictatorship and years of Brazilian military dictatorship after 1964

Abstract

This comparative study intends to analyze some understandings and prescriptions of the Physical Education subject in the second half of the 1940’s and the first half of 1970’s in the state of Paraná, Brazil. This study uses as sources the Diretrizes para a Educação Física nos Estabelecimentos de Ensino Secundário, from 1947, some testimonies of school teachers and some issues of Revista Brasileira de Educação Física e Desportos, from the 1970’s. The focus is on the processes of curricular prescriptions redefinitions, mainly on the understanding of what the appropriate space for Physical Education classes was, have them been built or not. That represented a new way of figure out the teaching of this subject in the second half of the 20^th century, strongly anchored in sports. More than show the affirmation "the space educates and conforms", this article presents how those changes occurred in the Physical Education subject, helping to redefine its meaning in the Brazilian secondary school. These analyses conclude that many recommendations that disseminated the redefinition of Physical Education spaces were fully developed, indicating that the subject would gain a own "space", new and more vigorous in the diverse and plural school’s area, because the large financial resources involved in their effectiveness.