Pedagogization of Infancy in Mexico: Children, Teachers and disciplinary techniques towards the end of 19th century

Abstract

In this work, it is analyzed the pedagogization of infancy in Mexico at the end of the 19th century, in the context of public school modernization and the educational function of school discipline that were published in pedagogic journals that characterized children as holders of inappropriate habits and behaviors and justified control of children´s bodies as an institutionalized action. The arguments are grounded in the experience of national conferences (1889, 1890), the contents published in journals and the Interior Regulation for National Elementary Schools of 1896. In this pedagogic modernity, teachers were committed to educate infants as social individuals and guarantee the transmission of knowledge to children in its three dimensions: intellectual, physical and moral. In terms of methodological approach, it was conducted a historiographic review of education and brief articles of Mexican teachers who published in México Intelectual, El Escolar Mexicano, La Enseñanza, La Instrucción Publica Mexicana y El Eco Pedagógico. It was concluded that surveillance and control of children’s’ body was achieved through the application of disciplinary strategies; however, family collaboration was regarded as important if education wanted to achieve its goals: to educate integrally for a social life.