Structure and mode of production in the brazilian educational debate

• In Event: Marx, Education, Today

Abstract

This text examines the introduction of Marxism in Brazilian educational thought. It argues that this reception was heavily influenced by theoretical humanism, derived from Marx's early writings and centered on categories such as alienation, human essence, and emancipatory education. This perspective became dominant but is seen as limited due to its connection with the ideology of "democratic socialism."
In contrast, advocates for a revival of structural Marxism, as a more robust analytical tool to understand the role of education in capitalism. Historical materialism, a science of history, shifts the focus from human essence to concrete analysis of the mode of production. In this framework, the school is understood as ideological apparatus of the bourgeois state, functioning to reproduce class conditions.

Author

• Lucas Barbosa Pelissari, Unicamp