The action of psychology professionals in Brazilian public schools has a long history. It reflects the history of psychology as a science and profession and that, for Fagan (1996), is a specialty, without a doubt, important in the light of a determined social, economic, and political situation. The work produced by several Brazilian researchers (Antunes, 1991; Jacó-Villela, 2013; Massimi, 1990; Massimi & Guedes, 2004) has shown that this history dates to the post-colonial period. However, the practical application of Psychology in the educational context had its peak in the 1930s, when organizations had as characteristic the “care” of school children, as well as the application of psychological knowledge in institutions for educational purposes and teacher training (Barbosa, 2011; Taverna, 2003).

Almeida and Guzzo (1992) systematized five moments in the history of the relationship between Psychology and Education. In the early days, psychology was part of the basic knowledge for the formation of teaching literacy teachers and served as the basis for the evaluation and treatment of children, considered at the time, with “learning problems”. Afterwards, in a second phase, he contributed to the choice of the profession, by means of “vocational and professional guidance”. In these two moments, the predominance was the emphasis placed on the evaluation and diagnosis of the psychological characteristics of the students. At the third moment, the contributions of psychology to education were related to theories and practices referred to learning and human development, especially for school learning, which resulted in a more incisive practice in teacher training (educational psychology). The fourth moment, from an image centered on school learning, education started to place emphasis on the process of integral development and psychology turned, more intensively, to a preventive orientation in exercise in the school community (school psychology). The last period is described as the renewal of the work of the professional of psychology, from the interface of school psychology with social and community psychology, when proposals were developed addressed to all involved in the educational process. The authors give a panorama of how the area has also been transformed by what have occurred in the educational field itself because of the changes that have occurred in the country.

Psychology related to Education, according to Patto (1984), was born founded on the political, economic, and social interests of the emerging liberal capitalist ideals in the country, from the 1930s onwards. In this period, Brazil was moving from an agro-exporting economy to an industrial one, and several fields of activity emerged responding to this situation. Several institutions for teaching, research, and practical application of Psychology knowledge in the field of industry, hospital, school, and other organizations have appeared in the Brazilian scenario. Thus, Psychology, as a professional practice, had its origin, also, in these first services and, from the approval of the legislation that regulated the profession of psychologists in Brazil in 1962 (Conselho Federal de Psicologia, 1962).

The professionalization of Psychology, during the military dictatorship, restricted the activity in the educational field, stimulating a restricted profile to the treatment of “abnormal” and “deviants”, of psychological disorders and diseases, which made disseminate in the area, theories, and practical guidelines of adjustment stamp. Strongly influenced by the movement of the tests (psychometry) and by psychoanalysis, the first performances followed the model of treatment of the so-called “child-problem” or attention to “learning problems”. In the mid-1970s, above all in the state of São Paulo, the practices of psychologists began in places such as city halls and centers of psychological assistance specific to the demands originating in the ambit of schools (Taverna, 2003). Work has now legitimized a reality of school failure and learning problems outside of school space and for the purpose of adjustment.

In terms of professional and academic organization, professionals came together through training institutions (public and private Higher Education Institutions), also through the Regional and Federal Councils of Psychology (created in the early 1970s) and the scientific associations. The first associations formed in Psychology, even before the regulation of the profession in Brazil, were the Brazilian Psychology Society of São Paulo (1945) and the Brazilian Association of Psychotechnics (1950) that also created the first scientific journals in Psychology (Antunes, 1991). However, specifically with regard à Psychology in the educational context, it was only in the 1990s that the Brazilian Association of School and Educational Psychology was created and the scientific journal in the area. In the 1970s, the influence of American behaviorist research grew, as did the “Theory of Cultural Shortage” which was widely disseminated among practitioners in this field of performance and research. This theory stated that children who did not learn or who had difficulties in the school context, had as cause of their problems the lack of adequate learning conditions, poor environments in stimulation and therefore these were indicated for compensatory education program with the help of specialists, among them the psychologist. The theory of cultural deprivation was the ideological justification for the non-ascension of the less favored classes to socially constituted goods, masking a false idea of equal opportunities (Patto, 1984).

As Yazlle (1997) says, School Psychology began to minimize biological factors as an explanation of “school” behaviors and, with this, a discourse began on environmental and socioeconomic factors as producers of “behavioral deficits”. This author reiterates that only the focus of biological determinism has shifted to sociological determinism. And one can say that the 1970s and 1980s were marked by this thinking within School Psychology, although there was á glimpse of criticism of this model.

The 1980s were important for the country, due to the process of democratization, after a long history of military dictatorship and political, social, and intellectual upsurge. They were also effervescent years for School Psychology because, at this time, scholars and researchers started to develop a critical position that considered elements of concrete reality as responsible for failure in school and, as inadequate, the focus on the child and the use of psychoanalytic and psychometric instruments (medical clinic) for the understanding of what happened in the dynamics of educational processes. Starting from the thesis of Maria Helena Souza Patto, entitled “Psychology and Ideology, reflections on School Psychology” of 1981, from the work of Khouri in the work “School Psychology” (Patto, 1984) and others that came in the following years in Brazil, School Psychology began to review its theoretical and practical fundamentals based on criticism of the traditional model, which was then in force. According to Barbosa (2011), at this moment of Psychology, like what occurred in the field of History in the 1980s, a crisis has also been established, of discussions about the ideological role of this science and debates around a Traditional Psychology and based on positivist assumptions, responding to capitalist interests and à criticism of this type of thinking (Parker, 2007).

It is important to remember that, in Argentina, Pichon-Rivière discussed analytic practice from another perspective, institutional and critical. Alberto Merani already had published his “Psychology and Alienation” in 1973, in the field of Social Psychology and we have the contributions of Martín-Baró (1998), among others. Psychology was discussed in several sectors to seek new configurations for this science. In Brazil, coinciding with the defense of Patto (1984), there is a fruitful discussion in the field of Education, starting from the works of Paulo Freire, Demerval Saviani and Moacir Gadotti. These authors advocated the change of Education in the search for a special look at the popular classes and discussed the question of the educational function with liberating ends, and not only reproductivity of the capitalist system “(...) it can be said that Brazilian Psychology undertook, on the part of some groups, a folding about itself to rethink its theorizations and its practices” (Patto, 1984, p. 400).

Many researchers started to produce theoretical thinking, of a critical and renovating nature, which, back in the 1980s, discussed the need for change in education. This moment occurred, concomitantly, with the discussion of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (Presidência da República, 1996), and consequent transformations that were taking place throughout this period as direct elections, strengthening of the democratic system and educational reorganization.

Since then, there have been works that discuss the need for a new School Psychology, such as: “Introduction à School Psychology” (Patto, 1984), “Psicologia escolar: padrões e práticas em países de língua espanhola e portuguesa” (Guzzo et al., 1993), “School psychology: research, training and practice” (Witter, 1996), “School psychology: in search of new directions” (Machado & Souza, 1997), “School psychology: LDB and education today” (Guzzo, 1999), “Psychology and education: theoretical challenges (Tanamachi et al., 2000), “Health and education: pleasure!” (Morais & Souza, 2001), “School and educational psychology: health and quality of life” (Del Prette, 2001), “School psychology: ethics and skills in training and professional performance” (Almeida, 2003), “School psychology: critical theories” (Meira & Antunes, 2003a) and “School Psychology: Critical Practices” (Meira & Antunes, 2003b), “School psychology and social commitment: new discourses, new practices” (Martínez, 2007), “Education in school psychology: realities and perspectives” (Campos, 2007), “School psychology: new scenarios and research contexts, formation interesting and prejudicious” (Marinho-Araújo, 2009) and “School psychology: identifying and overcoming barriers (Guzzo & Marinho-Araújo, 2011), “ Psicologia escola: desafios e bastidores da educação pública”(Guzzo, 2014). The area developed with a systematic production on the topics related to debates in this field, following the publications by the themes presented, such as violence in schools, psychology in higher education, the proposals and challenges of inclusive education, teacher training, prejudice, and oppression in the context of schools, etc.

These productions encompass reflections on the role of the psychologists in this new educational context of the country, strongly based now, to the critics of adaptationists models and of an adjusted stamp. Criticism was made to the theory of cultural lack, to the work of discriminating towards the poor classes using inappropriate psychometric instruments, as well as the need for transformation. A hallmark of the period 1990s and 2000s is the reconfiguratioņ of a new Educational and School Psychology that corresponded to the capitalist proposals of maintaining social inequalities and lack of commitment to change required socially and culturally (Euzébios Filho & Guzzo, 2009).

The crisis of a theoretical position, practices and the need to build new foundations for Educational and School Psychology, can also be one of the explanations for the emergence of the need to construct a specific scientific association in the area. In testimony to Ciampa and the Conselho Regional de Psicologia de São Paulo (2009), one of the founders of the Brazilian Association of School and Educational Psychology, Dr. Geraldina Porto Witter, stated that before, when the psychologist wanted to find a scientific article in the area would have to resort to various journals. And also, the professionals do not have a scientific event specific, neither a singular organization that could specifically serve their scientific interests. Raquel Souza Lobo Guzzo, also one of the founders of ABRAPEE, in her statement to Barbosa (2011) said that, having contact with the International of School Psychology (ISPA), found that there was a need to build something similar in Brazil. Witter (2011) states that the Sociedade Brasileira de Psicologia (SBP, formerly Brazilian Psychology Society, Ribeirão Preto), which still maintains an annual periodicity, becomes a space where professionals from different areas come together for discussions of Psychology, in general, and in specific areas. It was at one of these meetings, at the end of the each of 1980, that a round table took place with the participation of the professors Solange Muglia Wechsler (UnB - Universidade de Brasília), Maria Helena Novaes (PUC-RJ, Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro), Raquel Souza Lobo Guzzo (PUC-Campinas, Pontificia Universidade Católica de Campinas) and Geraldina Porto Witter (USP, Universidade de São Paulo) and in this place were laid the foundation for the creation of ABRAPEE.

As a result, a pioneering movement of organization da the scientific association of School and Educational Psychology and the 1º Congresso Nacional de Psicologia Escolar (CONPE, 1th National Congress of School Psychology) began in 1991, in the city of Valinhos in São Paulo. The II CONPE was held, in 1994, in partnership with International School Psychology Association (ISPA) and its XVII International Congress of School Psychology, for the first time in Brazil, within the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas. At the first congress, ABRAPEE was founded, and its first board was formed. In 1996, the Journal “School and Educational Psychology” was created.

ABRAPEE turned 35 years old in 2025, however, very little of this process involved the interest of Brazilian students, researchers, and professionals, possibly because the area of school psychology was not yet regulated as a public policy of professional insertion in the field of education. Even as of Federal Law No 13,935/2019 (Presidência da República, 2019), this field of work is still incipient in the country. There are still few comprehensive studies that deepen the thematic of the construction of this association and its role in the organization of the area in Brazil.

The study that gave rise to this article was based on historical and dialectical materialism, when epistemological interest is subordinated to the ontological direction of its reflection (Paulo Netto, 1998, 2011). In this model, the analysis of an object needs to be grasped in its dynamics, in a reflective relationship that considers the historical aspects present in their analysis. Inspired by this model, the research was developed by different processes and search for information that was dispersed in different spaces − documents were retrieved, all available publications, photos, and materials of the events, as well as an interview with presidents of the association. This recovery of historical materials from the association and organization for the study allowed the dynamics of the association to be grasped in the search for the totality possible concerning this proposal, the contradictions present in the development of the association’s actions and the possible connections. The research was structured in different activities: survey and organization of ABRAPEE archives, interviews for oral testimony with founding members, board members and technicians who have contributed to the organization of the association. All collected material has been identified and described. The data investigated in the study were analyzed in a descriptive way, pointing out the issues that constituted the creation of ABRAPEE, its purposes and objectives, as well as the progress of the association’s productions, such as the events and the production of the Journal. The analyses were qualitative and quantitative, using descriptive statistical techniques - simple frequency and percentage, document analysis according to Pimentel (2001), analysis and meaning of qualitative data, according to Aguiar and Ozella (2006).

In the search and organization of all material resulting from the foundation and development of ABRAPEE, the following can be highlighted: 1) The creation of ABRAPEE; 2) Its operation and development, documents, minutes, and records; 3) The creation of the Journal and analysis of its editions in periodicity and content. The results presented here, refer to a synthesis3 made by analyzing each set of information obtained by the processes of historical recovery and organization of the documents. In the research carried out were identified and organized official documents of the association, such as minutes of assemblies, board of directors, statutes, as well as publications such as newsletters, annals of the events and the magazine, besides interviews with founders of ABRAPEE published in their periodical. These documents constituted a corpus of the documents organized by the identification of each document with source and given of the edition, all organized chronologically, delimiting the time interval in which they were produced or edited. Readings and rereading’s were made, descriptions of each material and an analysis of each specific source was prepared, both quantitatively and qualitatively. As is well known, there is no neutral history or history that is merely a reproduction of facts that occurred at a given historical moment. Especially that which is done, from official documents, one must be careful not to incur hasty conclusions, because they can denote what the documents “wish” to express and not what can really be considered as historiographic evidence (Prates & Caldas, 2013; Prestes, 2010). In this case, the changes and movements around seeking to achieve the initial goals are undeniable, even if not all have been achieved.

This synthesis highlights that the trajectory of ABRAPEE has contributed to the expansion of the area, mainly through the productions carried out in its Journal, which has become an important space for scientific production and, also, with the realization of events that have brought more and more researchers and professionals from this field of research and activity every day since 1991, with regularity every two years.

A hard work, like this, does ‘not have how to be closed without the horizon before us constituting a utopia that moves us ever and more. This work was motivated by an objective, clear and forceful demand − history needs to be told and better so by those who have lived it directly. Different testimonials, at different moments, bring important elements, so that this revealed story is public, and that some conclusion or synthesis is possible, which, in the way we conceive history, makes possible the overcomes.

It is impossible to deny or not to perceive the influence of people in the construction of Psychology in Brazil and of School Psychology, especially. People who came from a professional background as educators and educators and who were included in Psychology by the historical moment that allowed this condition. Thus, it was with the pioneers, the trainers of a first generation of professionals in Brazil, who, following the tracks left behind, were left abandoned, to this day, a construction scientific, professional, and political field of work.

In the search to rescue the history of ABRAPEE, the initial idea was to evaluate how a scientific and professional association could create conditions or contribute to the strengthening of the profession above all and more specifically, in the field of Education. After all, since 1990, it is possible to establish links between the existence of ABRAPEE and the presence of the Psychology professional in the educational field, even considering that this nano relationship is linear or mechanistic but depends on many other factors present in the political and social context.

The history of a profession is difficult to be told, because different views bring different elements in this task, however, we seek to point out some markers for this analysis that help us to reflect, from the point of view, critical history, on internal and external influences on Psychology and on consequences resulting from the given steps.

Perhaps the intentions were much greater than the possibilities of its accomplishments, but in fact, this work has become an important information bank about what were these years of ABRAPEE and how this time impacted the profession in Brazil. Rather than, an impartial and neutral account, this work sought to establish some relationships between historical elements and draw conclusions about this process, pointing to the responsibility of those who dedicate themselves to this task. For this reason, this work also proposes a lot to be thought about and reflected on, much to be written and disseminated, so that it is possible to motivate new professionals to prepare to follow the steps, in a more prepositive way. Psychology needs to be present in the daily life of Brazilian public schools, together with all children, teachers, and families, looking for better conditions for the development and learning process. Even so, some considerations can be highlighted a way of summarizing the steps to be taken in the future.

During these analyzes, it was possible to point out some of the initiatives that ABRAPEE would need to review, so that it could strengthen the professionalism, although being an association more scientific than professional. It needs to be made clear here that, for us, science is an important political tool for strengthening the profession, for inserting students into that practice, and for training professionals in graduation courses. School Psychology needs to occupy the political spaces that impact the daily life of children in schools. This is a key for preventing overcoming the more general and specific problems impacting development, especially for children and adolescents.

Science and profession are not distinct categories, on the contrary. In a dialectical perspective, scientific knowledge feeds the professions and the professional impacts the production of science. Therefore, the relationship between the scientific association and the strengthening of a profession delineates elements of anonymization between intentions and consequential, between intentionality and exteriorizes, which need to be considered from what is apparent. If, on the one hand, ABRAPEE undertook the intentional of making the area visible, nationally, and internationally, it has not yet achieved professional strengthening through the committed involvement of psychologists, and teachers. Pedagogical projects in the training of professionals in Higher Education Institutions still don’t give priority for the formation to psychology practices for the educational area (Seixas, 2014; Silva Neto, 2014; Tizzei, 2014), which shows evidence of a crystallization of the Psychology project of a commitment to the area of healthy and the model of intervention still on clinic-remediated mode.

The still small number of professionals associated to ABRAPEE reveals the fact that restricted the impact of their action, despite the growth of participants in national events. The strength of an association is related to the number of its associates and, more than that, to the effectively participation and dissemination presence in spaces of political decision for beyond the area. The timid presence of scientific productions in the formation classes is an indicator that the actions of ABRAPEE are still limited around few researchers of the area.

In the light of these observations, we can say that the future of School Psychology in Brazil needs to be built collectively, mainly with the participation of its scientific association, of professionals who train psychologists and who directly work in public spaces. Let ABRAPEE’s priority be the involvement of a growing group of professionals in the defense and realization of the inclusion of Psychology in the daily life of the Brazilian school through scientifically proven arguments, translating the advances of knowledge with the qualification of the professional practice. The social changes that permeated the intentions of the founders of ABRAPEE for years, still feed the trajectory of the association, but it is needed to overcome the walls that protect Psychology, historically as a distant science from the real public school.