The Belo Horizonte Teacher’s College laboratory: Circulating Psychology in Brazil

Abstract

The circulation and indigenization of psychological objects is a trending topic in the history of psychology. One of the elements debated is the psychology laboratory and its influences in shaping psychology worldwide. In this direction, our paper aims to describe the experimental psychology laboratory at the Belo Horizonte Teacher’s College and to analyze its role in the history of Brazilian psychology. Particularly, we present its installation in the late 1920s, its apparatuses and the use of mental testing in this context. Our results pointed out two main aspects about this laboratory: (1) it was a place for teaching scientific psychology to future primary teachers, and (2) it conducted different studies about anthropometric and mental aspects of childhood in the context of urban and industrial change in the first decades of the 20 th century in Brazil. As envisioned, the laboratory was seen as an agent of social change that would promote modernization in Brazilian education and society. The laboratory also contributed to the circulation of psychological knowledge in Brazil and is, at the same time, an important chapter in the local history and part of the global history of psychology.