Curso de Férias para aperfeiçoamento de professores de Geografia do Ensino Secundário

This study investigates the vacation courses for the professional development of secondary school Geography teachers, promoted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) between 1962 and 1971 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The objective is to analyze the trajectory, curricular content, and impacts of these initiatives on teacher training, as well as their contribution to the consolidation of Geography education within the Brazilian educational context. Methodologically, the study adopts a historical and documentary approach, anchored in the analysis of primary sources such as publications from the Boletim Geográfico, the Revista Brasileira de Geografia, and, most notably, the course materials used in these programs. These initiatives played a significant role in disseminating innovative methodologies, enhancing teacher qualifications, and consolidating Geography as both an academic and school subject. The emphasis on areas such as cartography and statistics, Geography teaching, and Economic Geography highlights the deliberate effort to improve teacher training, equipping educators with the technical and scientific tools necessary for analyzing Brazil’s geographic space in alignment with the educational and political demands of the time. Although these training programs made a substantial contribution to the advancement of geographic education, they were aligned with a technicist and nationalist perspective, limiting the incorporation of critical approaches aimed at analyzing social inequalities and territorial conflicts. The study underscores the intrinsic relationship between science, the state, and ideology in the construction of school knowledge, highlighting the importance of critical reflections on Geography education in Brazil.