A criança e a cidade: as transformações da infância numa Natal moderna

The first years of the twentieth century in Natal is characterized by several urban interventions that aim was to change the feature of the city basically rural to another that was in line with cities as models of modernity and civilization. In this case all individuals would have to play important social roles, which included men, women and especially children. It was in this atmosphere of bright future that the children were taken as key parts of an idealized society. Some processes were essential in triggering changes in natal s childhood, among them, operated within the families, that this historic moment in public life sought other possibilities of existence, the school education and the construction of which would be the model for urban education the School Groups, propagators of science as mediators of all knowledge, and finally, the medical interventions that disseminating health and hygiene practices has enabled not only the conservation of child life, but also the possibility of building their individuality in a body healthy. If these processes on the one hand tried to crystallize an ideal image of a child making a child identity directly linked to education and the "body hygiene" on the other, giving specific reflexive autonomy to children, providing them see the world through eyes of subject.