As crianças e a guerra, pela voz de um pedagogo da Escola Nova em Portugal

Abstract

António de Sena Faria de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) was a leading Portuguese pedagogue and a prominent representative of the progressive education movement in Portugal. He played an influential role in the development of the educational thinking of his time, most notably through his work at the New University of Brussels and the creation of a school in Bierges-Les-Wavre, an experience he chronicled in the book, A New School in Belgium, published in 1915. When World War I broke out, he went to Geneva to join the team of educational scientists at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute. This paper focuses on a lecture delivered by Faria de Vasconcelos in Switzerland in April 1915, following the publication of A New School in Belgium. The aim of the research is to examine the correlation established by the author between childhood and war and to provide new insights into the conception of childhood that guided his thinking. The study analyses the text of his lecture, "Les enfants et la guerre", in dialogue with the psycho-pedagogical thinking of the time. The analysis focuses on children’s response to war, which Faria de Vasconcelos conceived of as one of fear and fascination, using his innovative perspective on the topic to reflect on ideas of childhood and to problematize the concept of war. The paper concludes with a reflection on the consistency of perspective between the principles of the progressive education movement and Faria de Vasconcelos’s unique analysis of the link between childhood and war.