“Brancos, mixtos e pretos”: o perfil social e racial do alunado da escola elementar Olavo Bilac na década de 1930, em Santa Maria/RS

Abstract

This research aims to reflect on the social and racial profile of the students present in the educational space of the Escola Elementar Olavo Bilac, located in the city of Santa Maria/RS, during the years of 1937 and 1938. The analysis of the student’s profiles is based upon a quantitative and serial survey of about 1,300 school enrollments, safeguarded in the Acervo Histórico do Instituto Estadual de Educação Olavo Bilac, alongside the analysis of photographs, oral interviews and other sources. Beginning with a creation of a database of this enrollments and its presentation, it was possible to perceive the presence of students classified in the document as white, mixed and black, as well average age, their different arrangements and family structures, and to identifying the professional occupations of their guardians. In addition, we reconstructed the trajectory of one of these students and her family, between slavery and freedom, to her experience as a teacher, formed by the same institution. The research falls within the field of post-Abolition studies, which provided a point in discussions about the presence, performance and resistance of black population in brazilian society after the Abolition of slavery, while also discussing its participation in the History of Education. Therefore, we can see agências negras that the racialization of the educational environment is still overlooked by the historiography of Rio Grande do Sul.