Dewey in Argentina (1916-1946): Tradition, intention, and situation in the production of a selective reading

From the 1910s on, Argentinean educators repeatedly looked to Dewey's work in search of models of educational reform. However, his undisputed reputation as a major thinker contrasted with a very selective view of his work and a weak reception in institutional terms. This article focuses on the marginalization of substantial parts of his scholarship in Argentina. A strong selective reading there produced a de-politicized version of Dewey as an educational reformer. The multiple relationships between "democracy" and "education" or "schooling" opened up by Dewey's thought were reduced in Argentina to a peculiar form of "didactics," in a movement that reflected the intellectual and political trajectories of the supporters of the New Education Movement. Working through translations, articles and comments on Dewey's work, we will focus on understanding the range of alternative readings that were available at a particular time, and the contexts of debate in which they became possible. The liberal and Catholic traditions of reading foreign references and models will be put together with the struggles that organized political oppositions in the period considered, and with the particularly heated climate ( first democratically elected government, military dictatorships, Peron's election) that marked these years and that tainted Dewey's reception in Argentina.