Reforma Cabanis (Circa 1800): uma reforma universitária sem universidades, esquecida na história da educação

Abstract

I propose to name as Cabanis Reform a set of policies, laws and initiatives of educational reform that, after the French Revolution, lead to higher education models oriented towards professionalism, disciplinarity and specialization. In this essay, I introduce the Cabanis Reform in more detail, evaluating contexts, structure and nature of its proposals, seeking to understand why this academic reform seems to have been forgotten in the history of education. In the first part, I briefly analyse the process of restructuring the educational system of post-revolutionary France, highlighting historical and politico-institutional dimensions of Cabanis’ contribution. In the second part, I present the main elements of this proposal of institutional and politico-educational reform of medical training that catalysed the creation of a new model of higher education, where the university has only a nominal existence. In conclusion, I suggest that, by instituting higher education based on faculties, professions, disciplines and specialties, excluding the concept of the University as a secular format of general education institution, Cabanis Reform has configured a model of education organic to postcolonial capitalism, which has become hegemonic in the Latin American cultural space.