ABSTRACT
The emergence of the Brazilian curriculum field in the 1990s was marked by an intense American influence that resulted from an instrumental process of transference fostered by concrete associations between Brazil and the United States. The major point of this transference was to assimilate the technical perspectives that would enable curriculum development. It was only in the early 1980s that the field acquired greater complexity as it gained references in critical theories. Two national groups, pertaining to the critical-historical pedagogy and the pedagogy of the oppressed, strove for hegemony both in the educational discourse as well as their capacity for political intervention. By the end of the 1980s, the field’s references assumed the multiplicity of perspectives that was to become a major trait of the 1990s field. This multiplicity included not only the appropriation of authors from the curriculum field, but also of thinkers from the fields of sociology and philosophy. This multiplicity and complexity is why the task of defining the curriculum field in Brazil today is such a difficult task.
