The 1920 school census in the Sao Paulo press

a civic campaign to combat illiteracy

Abstract

When Sampaio Doria became the General Director of Public Instruction of the State of Sao Paulo in 1920, his first measure him was to conduct a school census of children between 6 and 12 years old, in order to know how many children were illiterate, where they lived and what were the conditions of the region in which they lived. Taking the 1920 school census as an object, this article aims to analyze the role played by the Sao Paulo press in promoting a civic campaign for census, interfering with the making of the fact. We analyze how the press publicized the census from June through September, taking the press as an agent of history, as they put matters of the public sphere in the agenda, select them, record them and comment on them. Our hypothesis is that the social effect resulting from the press coverage helped impel the 1920 Reform by drawing attention to illiteracy and inflating its visibility. The sources of this article consist of publications in the newspapers Correio Paulistano, O Estado de S. Paulo and Jornal do Commercio. The agenda-setting theory is used as a theoretical-methodological framework, according to which the most decisive effect that the media generates in the debate is the agenda itself. We conclude that the dissemination of the school census by the press amplified the denunciation of illiteracy. By following up the governmental actions regarding the school census, the press set the theme of illiteracy, showing it off with images, in accordance with the activities carried out by the government.