"What kind of student is this?": Psychology, pedagogy and teacher training

Abstract

The paper analyzes the explanations about individual differences and personality in educational psychology books used for training teachers in Brazil, between 1920 and 1960. This is a study that shows how such explanations aggregate and prioritize knowledge and philosophical, biological, psychoanalytical or religious perspectives in different situations. Also noteworthy are the characteristics of recommendations to teachers and the establishment of requirements for the teaching processes. The links between psychology and pedagogy throughout the study period can be seen in the discourse of those publications, in which the deductive character of the educational consequences of the knowledge of human development gains a progressive character.