The Public the Private and Education in Rio de Janeiro (1954-1970)

Little is said in Brazil about the association between public and private in the 1970s especially with regard to the establishment of public education networks. The Centro Educacional de Niterói (CEN) was a private school subsidized in large part by public funds which not only produced experimental and innovative teaching methodologies but also developed activities in the public interest even though it was located in the Field of Schools of Excellence in the City of Niterói. This book points to an understanding of the ways and means of Brazilian education which allow us to understand how the symbiotic association between public and private was built up in the 1950s and 1970s in the state of Rio de Janeiro. This is a reading that goes against the grain of a certain historiographical tradition of Brazilian education which sees educational processes and phenomena as mere expressions of the political and economic events of their time.