Abstract
The text discusses the presence of idyll and oppression dimensions in debates about the relationship between education and nature. It seeks its origins in the European experience of colonization of America and problematizes its permanence. It highlights the appropriation of this contradiction by Pedagogy, in a long historical period, whether in the idyllic perspective developed by Rousseau, with developments in the following centuries, including the new school; whether in the oppressive perspective, with the prescription of work in the field for the education of ‘underprivileged children’. Specifically, it demonstrates the permanence of these Eurocentric approaches in the Brazilian educational debate at the beginning of the 20th century and discusses the consequences for inequality in school provision and racism.
Keywords:
modernity; coloniality; civilization; barbarism