Finalidades e propósitos da educação jesuíta : formação para a excelência humana integral

Abstract

The analysis of Jesuit education highlights that its purpose lies in fostering integral human excellence. This conclusion stems from the outlined objective of recognizing the understanding of formative purposes and goals that emerge from Jesuit educational documents, aiming to identify the dimensions of human formation that arise from this understanding. The adopted method involved document analysis, investigating 24 educational documents from the Society of Jesus. Through data analysis, recurring themes were identified and grouped into three analytical categories: humanism, human excellence, and a holistic perspective on education. Consequently, this research acknowledges that Jesuit education operates within a framework anchored in Christian social humanism, guided by a comprehensive approach to formation, with the ultimate goal of developing integral human excellence. There is alignment between the very purpose of Jesuit education and the ideal of the person to be shaped by its educational model. This convergence of formative objectives and the essence of human formation challenges the current entanglement of education with a learning-centric logic, which may lead to a loss of focus on the centrality of the individual in the formative process. Simultaneously, it underscores that adapting human formation to flexible utility diminishes formative purposes. Therefore, the purpose of Jesuit education cannot be confined solely to learning, as it is oriented toward holistic human excellence.