CREFAL's Audiovisual Aids Department: producing innovative educational materials for elementary education in Latin America (1951 - 1960).

• Grant number: 23/08805-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2024
• End date: December 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Fundamentals of Education
• Principal Investigator: Rosa Fátima de Souza Chaloba
• Grantee: Isabela Ribeiro Espindola
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/26699-4 - Knowledge and practices in frontiers: toward a transnational History of Education (1810-...), AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/07044-0 - The Audiovisual Aids Department of CREFAL: production of innovative educational materials for primary education in Latin America (1951 - 1960), BE.EP.IC

Abstract

The Regional Center for Fundamental Education for Latin America (Crefal) was established in 1951, in Pátzcuaro - Mexico, based on the agreement established between UNESCO, the government of Mexico and the Organization of American States (OAS), with the purpose of training technicians and educators for fundamental education and producing innovative educational materials. To this end, this institution was organized in two sectors: the Training Department and the Audiovisual Aids Department. Constitutive of the educational modernity, the artifacts, teaching materials, furniture, and educational technologies are implicated in the international circulation of pedagogical models. It is in this perspective that this research project is inserted, and its objectives are To reconstruct the history of the Department of Audiovisual Aids of Crefal, in the period 1951-1960, considering the institutional organization, the subjects involved, the conceptions about audiovisual resources and the activities carried out concerning the training of educators and the production of educational materials for elementary education; to identify the subjects involved in the organization of this Department; to analyze the representations about the importance of audiovisual materials in education in the handouts produced by the team of the Department of Audiovisual Aids and to gather data and characterize the audiovisual educational materials produced by the Department. The research is grounded in studies on school material culture and dialogues with the Cultural History approach and the transnational perspective of studies in History of Education. The research sources comprise the written and iconographic documents preserved in the Historical and Documentary Archives of Crefal.