Adventismo e educação no Brasil: a apropriação da produção educacional de Ellen G. White (1827-1915)

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the educational production of Ellen G. White (1827-1915), writer and founding religious leader of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (IASD) in the United States, with a view to discussing the appropriation of her ideas by Adventist brazilian schools. We sought to identify the propositions elaborated by her, examining her educational principles, apprehending the objectives, the curriculum, the educator's profile and the educational proposal for the student. The research is justified by the demand for the discussion of the complex relationships between religion, religiosity and Education, and, in this particular case, also by the interest in evaluating the construction of the expressive teaching network built by the denomination. This is a bibliographical and documentary research located within the scope of the History of Education, in which conceptual tools taken from the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu were prominently used. White's educational productions used as a source were: the books Councils on Education (1889/1968); Fundamentals of Christian Education (1872/1974); Education (1903/1977); Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students (1913/1975a); Child Guidance (1900/1954); and the article A proper education, which is part of the book Testimonies for the church. v.3 (1872/2009). These are the author's main texts on Education and offer us information that makes it possible to discuss the elements of her written production that impacted the organization and practices of Adventist Education in our country. The concepts of social capital, cultural capital and symbolic capital, as well as the religious field and the educational field, supported the analysis undertaken about the dynamics through which Ellen White, within her church, managed to build prestige and status. In order to obtain differentiated treatment and, effectively, to be understood as a prophetess chosen by God, since, notably, from her alleged visions, legitimized her speech. As a result of the investigation, it was verified that Ellen G. White was an intellectual who operated, especially, on the frontier of the religious field with the educational one, formulating ideas that had a wide reach. By proposing and systematizing knowledge, promoted advances in Adventist Education, acting as an educational basis, through the presentation of philosophical fundamentals and the proposition of practices. By employing varied means of action, Ellen White effectively acted as an intellectual, having brought important ideas to the educational area, which directed the formation of an Adventist Pedagogy, whose appropriation also occurred by Adventist schools in Brazil.