Official Initiatives for the Building of Primary Schools in the city of Buenos Aires during the 19th Century

Abstract

The objective of this article is to offer a compendium of emerging initiatives during the 19th century that promoved or strengthened the construction of buildings for fiscal primary schools in the city of Buenos Aires. The methodology includes the study of documents such as legislation, management reports, educational censuses, files from the National Council of Education (CNE) and articles from the educational journal El Monitor de la Educación common. Different moments are identified, mentioning general characteristics of the initiatives and identifying primary and secondary sources. In addition, some initial readings on these state intentions are proposed. In this sense, the interpretations offered in this article have the sole purpose of constituting hypotheses, insinuating variables of interest and suggesting deeper research problems. By way of conclusion, some discussions are retrieved about the nature of the guiding principles of state school building in Argentina. It is proposed as a hypothesis for future works that it is not possible to affirm categorically that there has been a transition of the projects towards pedagogical guiding principles; although neither did it follow purely hygienic guidelines. On the contrary, the initiatives mentioned in this writing suggest that hygienic, pedagogical and also political principles emerged, discussed and disputed the leading role. Therefore, it is interesting to re-inscribe these findings in lines of analysis that trace objects of material culture and suggest transitions, irregularities, dispersions, displacements, etc.