The use of the Past in School: National Identity and the Teaching of History in the Argentine Education System, 1880-2010

Abstract

This article analyzes the place of national history in Argentine schools since the beginning of history classes around 1880 through 2009, the year of the curricula’s last modification. It thus covers over a century of interaction between governments and other stakeholders, who wrestled over the meaning and the uses of national history in schools, in order to render visible not only representations of the past that floated in the education system, but also the power relations and the interests behind constructions of history in the education of younger generations.