Making the Wedge Tight. Punishments and rewards for minors as part of educational practices. Querétaro (1950-1960)

Abstract

This paper aims to document the existence of a punishment-reward model in educational practices towards minors in Querétaro, a central-bajío region in Mexico, during the 1950s. This decade was considered a transitional stage to Modernity, in a sociocultural environment dominated by conservative institutions. Previous research shows the existence of physical and psychological punishment in classrooms, accepted by society, where minors did not perceive them as violence, but as a regular part of teaching. Academic research focused on exposing the cruelty of physical punishment and on the role of teaching in exercising relations of power and domination, but without focusing on the children or the dynamics in which correction was part of everyday life where reward-based stimuli were also abundant. To demonstrate this, research was conducted under the approach of Social and Cultural History, using official sources and references such as photographs, advertisements, comic books, or novels, through which are evidenced some of the stimuli and satisfiers that families, often through a strong economic sacrifice, provided to their children so that they were able to go to school. Among the conclusions, it is noteworthy that what was once considered common practices, over time, is no longer so, and that what was unthinkable, with progressivism, is now the norm. The current rejection of physical and psychological violence among and towards the school population is no exception.