This research investigates the different meanings of education on correctional ideas and practices between the years 1890 and 1927. The approximation of correction s and education s significances takes part at comprehension that they are both socializing modalities through which an institutional work takes part over the other, with the purpose of transforming him (Dubet, 2010). On the ideas and practices investigated, the purpose was to transform minors perverted by heredity and social environments in future citizens, useful to themselves and to the nation. The research starts on 1890 because this decade embodies a number of significant changes that achieved legal status on minors legislation, at 20th century early decades. Part of this investigation -- held in Portugal -- led to the expansion of researche s spatial delimitation, incorporating Portuguese. Childhood protection law (Lei de Proteção à Infância), passed in Portugal in 1911, was strongly influenced by pedagogical aspects, and it is a reference for Brazilian codes. The investigation s strategy was to focus on ideas circulation, based on Chartier s concept of representation, comprising an intangibility operation that produces ways of being in the world, imposes one authority at the expense of others, legitimates reforms and justifies their choices to individuals (1990; 2002). Representations are the real incarnated in practices. The methodology used was documentary analysis from the sources accessed in brazilian and portuguese institutions, in particular Biblioteca Nacional, Arquivo Nacional and Arquivo da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal and Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, in Portugal. In addition, the legislation of both countries on the studied subject. The documentary analysis revealed that minors impounding logic, in both countries – Brazil and Portugal --, has the peculiarity of classifying minors as strays; at correctional facilities workshops activities occupied almost all interns routines, however, each country varied the emphasis on work, in Brazil, workshops were environments of professional and working habits learning, and in Portugal workshops were places of learning, and correction would come through reflection in absolute isolation; the emergency of disciplinary facilities was linked to the debate about education importance on heredity combat; communication between Brazil and Portugal became effective after 1910 decade, when Childhood protection passed in Portugal, however, was in the 1920 s, as legislation established corrective pedagogical measures as a juridical language.