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The article discusses the importance that is currently ascribed to the "rediscovery" of national identity in contemporary social thought. This process of attributing importance to the national identity has taken place throughout the world and has affected the local production. In the wake of its search for "self-understanding", this process focuses on authors who were central in their time and were later marginalized, but today are key to understanding the process of construction of the national identity and the role played by education in it. At the local level, one of such leading intellectuals is Oliveira Vianna. This paper tries to understand the nature of some of the elements of the understanding of the national identity and education by this author, who is sometimes associated with Brazilian authoritarian thought, due to analytical categories introduced by him, such as "clan" and "lack of solidarity". It deals with the contemporariness of his critique of the state and the role of education derived from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]