This article proposes an analysis of the articles on secondary school published in the Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos (RBEP, Brazilian Journal of Pedagogical Studies) over the 1950s. The study investigates the criticism made by its collaborators to the organization provided by the Lei Orgânica do Ensino Secundário (Organic Law of Secondary School; 1942) to middle school, as well as the main proposals of reform, in an attempt to make it more active, practical and popular. The main objective is to investigate which was the new standard of secondary education being projected from the combination of arguments as the ideal in Brazil in the 1950s. Such needs were justified by the idea that the world was being ruled by "new cultural imperatives" that should be adopted by the Brazilian school in order to encourage the development of the country.
Secondary School; Education as Political Action; Educational Journal