A educa o religiosa nos manuais escolares de história: entre a ditadura e a liberdade (1947-2011)

History as a school subject, which has been considered according to some studies to be used for the transmission of political ideals, gathers the necessary prerequisites to promote society’s laicization. Therefore, using the subject of history as an example, we aim to evaluate whether the current Portuguese teaching has developed a religious education that supports the legislation implemented one hundred years ago, which was designed to separate the state from the church. To do so we compared Estado Novo (period of society’s laicization regression) and current History curriculums using as a source of information the manuals adopted in 1951 for the second cycle of secondary education and the most used manual in 2009 for the third cycle of basic education. This study allowed us to conclude that in 2009 the subject of history still did not present a religious education fully adapted to the current educational needs.