‘And lead us not into temptation': religious reading books from the fascist government to italian schools in Brazil (1920s and 1930s of the XX century)

Abstract

The present text analyzes the production, circulation and strategies of (con) formation put in play by the two volumes of the book Letture di Religione, distributed free to students of Italian schools in Brazil. The presence of these schools in the country was considerable and in 1908, there were 13,657 students attending 264 institutions, of which 13 were Catholic. The consular network was responsible for receiving and distributing school supplies (predominantly books) and financial subsidies from Italy to Brazil. With Fascism, organization and attention to schools intensified. Anchored in the Cultural History references, the empirical corpus consists of school books, legislations, newspapers and consular reports, and historical documentary analysis was the methodological procedure. Understanding the knowledge produced and disseminated by the use of these books as propagators of the fascist and catholic ideal in Italian schools abroad and the symbolic meanings that these objects acquired in the school universe is a theme of relevance for the History of Education.