Mobral: práticas de educação e doutrinação na ditadura militar

Abstract

During the Military Dictatorship in Brazil (1964–1985), the authoritarian regime prioritized the fight against activities deemed subversive, aligning the educational sector with the ideological directives of the Cold War. Within this context, the Brazilian Literacy Movement (MOBRAL), created in 1967 and expanded throughout the 1970s, became the primary initiative for youth and adult literacy. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of MOBRAL by addressing the tensions between the rhetoric of access to education and the tactics of ideological control and indoctrination implemented by the military regime. The methodological approach adopted is qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive in nature, based on bibliographic research and document analysis. The main primary source utilized is the material titled A Aventura do Homem: A Indústria, from the Integrated Education Program of MOBRAL, published between 1973 and 1974. The findings show that while popular education initiatives prior to 1964, following Paulo Freire’s perspective, aimed at learners' critical awareness and development, MOBRAL shifted education toward a more functional and pragmatic approach. The investigation of the instructional content revealed that training focused on work and industrial progress was linked to the dissemination of productivity and civic values, integrating learners into the regime’s project of development and social conformity. In summary, MOBRAL was a paradoxical experience: it met a real social need by expanding access to literacy nationwide, yet it did so through the instrumentalization of teaching and the restriction of the liberating potential of Youth and Adult Education.