The coup d’état reaches the classroom. Versions of recent history for kids

Abstract

What social representations about the latest coup d’état in Argentina circulate at this moment? What do we expect children to remember –now and when they are adults- regarding this historical period? Is it possible that different versions of the events coexist in a non-conflictive manner? What is the role of the school in that debate? In previous work (Zullo, 2011 & 2012) there was an argument in favor of the need to approach the study of the different versions of recent history that are offered to kids in the primary levels (Carretero & Krieger, 2006). In that first part of the project, the analysis of the book The coup and the kids (1996) written by Graciela Montes about the events of the latest military dictatorship period in Argentina produced from the field of pedagogical recontextualization (Bernstein, 1996), it was found there were elements of political discourse (Sigal & Verón, 1985) in tension with components of pedagogical discourse (Bernstein, 1996). In the second part of this study, we explored if we would find the same tension in the materials produced from the field of official recontextualization. To answer that question we analyzed the digital material produced at the national level by the Argentinean Ministry of Education for the commemoration of the 35 anniversary of the latest military dictatorship (Zullo, 2013). In this third phase of the project, we organize and present part of the results found through a comparative analysis organized in two axis: first the axis of design and the organization of information in the texts exploring the monomodal and multimodal graphic features (Kress &Van Leeuwen, 1996) and the global organization of information (van Dijk, 1983). In the second axis of analysis, we explore the places of enunciation to identify the construction of the interlocutors (speaker/hearer) (Ducrot, 1984); as well as the split of the addressee according to E. Verón’s (1987) conceptualization. In general terms, the findings reveal strong differences between the pedagogical materials in relation to these two axes. It may be due to the strong institutional presence that the most recent materials which is from a graphic design more appealing, turns out to be more distanced from the polemic orientation that G. Montes work has.