Brazilian education and culture: Historic development

This historical overview reflects on the various aspects of social development in Brazil. Literature, language, and education are traced and analyzed. It also encompasses other basic elements of the Brazilian nature: (a) Language which evolved from one people to another, and although they do not cross the frontiers of a state or the limits of language in which they were formed, they pass from one class or social group to another. It takes distinct tonalities which fasten upon them and end by adhering to them, and which come either from the particular mentality of groups existing side-by-side within a given society, or from the genius of the people to whose language they have been transferred (Azevedo, 1950, p. 3). (b) Civilization and culture, both introduced by scientists into a special vocabulary trying to give them a precise meaning, resist that effort with the wealth of ideas which they evoke and the variety of meanings which cling to them in common speech. Any process of abstraction which would separate the social and that human being would be dangerous. We cannot conceive man without culture (Azevedo, 1950). (c) The movement of educational reform and its effect in Brazil. (d) An analysis of Brazil\u27s public school system. Teachers in public schools are confronted with many more students than can easily be handled, and with a lower level of education plus teacher training. Teaching features rote memorization, whatever the subject matter. Science and mathematics programs are poor, except for private facilities. There are inadequate laboratories and a shortage of laboratory equipment. There is a strong need for reforms in curriculum and instructional methods, according to administrators, teachers, and parents in interviews conducted by the researcher seeking solutions for a bankrupt public school system. A careful analysis is followed by specific recommendations