Columbia Teachers College and Educational Psychology in Brazil: Circulation and Appropriation

Abstract

Background/Context: In Brazil, the 1920s and 1930s were characterized by initiatives intended to reform public school systems at the state level. As in the case of both educators whose work we analyze in this article, Brazilian educators traveled abroad searching for experiences that could help them think about the modernization of education in their own country. Some, like Isaías Alves and Noemy Rudolfer, advocated for using psychological tests in schools as part of the change. They translated and adjusted the foreign tests, which were given to primary school students during the 1930s. Focus of Study: Our work deals with the experiences of two Brazilians who visited Teachers College (TC), Columbia University, in New York, in 1930: Isaías Alves and Noemy da Silveira Rudolfer. Both coordinated services of applied psychology when they returned to Brazil: Alves in Rio de Janeiro and Rudolfer in São Paulo. Research Design: Our work develops a historical analysis of the use of psychological tests in Brazil through the experiences of these two educators. Conclusions/Recommendations: Using Alves and Rudolfer as a reference this article intends to demonstrate the relationship that Brazilian educators developed with the American education theories. Along this process, TC was a significant space of mediation between the Brazilian educators and the American professors and authors. Although TC played a substantial role in Rudolfer’s and Alves’s work, both took different approaches to local conditions. In doing so, they produced another knowledge, showing some of the possibilities open to Brazilian educators when they looked at American authors discussed by TC professors.