Educating for Democracy: Teacher Training as a Political Project for Cultural Transformation (Córdoba-Argentina, 1941-1943)

Abstract

In a decade characterized in Argentina by electoral fraud and restrictions on political freedoms, in the province of Córdoba the most progressive radicalism repeatedly promoted educational reform based on secularism and the principles of the New School, which involved a substantial transformation of the educational system based on democratic pedagogy. The resistance by clericalism and the lack of consensus within the radical party itself thwarted this proposal, so it was decided to transform the cultural and professional training of teachers through the creation of the Provincial Superior Normal School. In this article we analyse what set this initiative in motion, as well as the profile of the officials who directed it and the type of teachers who sought to train under it. We show that this experience was a cultural and political commitment by the provincial government that sought to transform the primary schools of Córdoba under the principles of the Escolanovistas, through the formation of an advance guard of teachers and citizens imbued with the values of democracy, freedom and social commitment. Badly damaged by the coup d’état of 1943, this experience sought to transform not only education but also the provincial and national reality. To reconstruct these processes, we combined the reading of specialized references with analysis of diverse sources, in particular legislative debates, provincial press, memoirs and governmental dispositions.