This paper is part of a broader research project that studies a fragment of recent educational history in Uruguay. In particular, it looks at basic education and teacher training in recent decades. In the period of democratic reconstruction (1985 - 2023), different meanings and disputes have taken shape around the institutional architecture of education, curricular designs and teacher training objectives, especially at the primary school level. The divergences articulated in the political guidelines of the educational reforms of the last decades, the curricular designs and the educational agents (teachers' unions and collectives) present particularities, continuities and tensions in various dimensions: organizational, curricular, levels of teacher and student participation, educational governance and autonomy. At the same time, and in particular, policies, reforms and teachers delineate imaginaries about the meanings that future teachers will have to shape. (Bentancur, 2007; Mancebo, 2007; Bordoli, 2015, 2019a, 2019b, 2020). In the dimensions indicated, differential features are identified that materialize, among others, in the curricular designs for teacher training, while at the same time articulating certain signifiers that structure networks of meanings and particular imaginaries that are presented in different degrees of tension. In this presentation, in particular, the 1977, 1986 and 2023 teacher training curriculum designs are analysis with the aim of identifying the place, functions, meanings and imaginaries attributed to future primary school teachers. The research work draws on the contributions of Political Discourse Analysis (Laclau, E. y Mouffe, Ch., 1987; Mouffe, 2009), the studies of Laval and Dardot (2015), Merklen (2013) and curriculum studies (de Alba, 1998; Frigerio, 1994, etc.). From these and analytical perspectives and through the study of contextual documents, the curriculum designs of the three selected moments (1977, 1986, 2023), particularities and tensions in the modes and imaginaries articulated around teachers are identified. It is important to underline that the different imaginaries about the ways of "being a teacher" seek to grant individual and collective identities that are articulated in complex and non-linear historical processes in which mechanisms of updating and hybridization of meanings in tension are developed.

El presente trabajo es parte de una investigación más amplia que estudia un fragmento de la historia educativa reciente en el Uruguay. Particularmente, se indaga en torno a la educación básica y a la formación de los docentes en las últimas décadas. En el período de reconstrucción democrática (1985 – 2023)[1] se han configurado sentidos diversos y disputas en torno a la arquitectura institucional de la educación, a los diseños curriculares y a las finalidades formativas de los docentes, especialmente a nivel de enseñanza primaria. Las divergencias articuladas en los lineamientos políticos de las reformas educativas de las últimas décadas, los diseños curriculares y los agentes educativos (sindicatos y colectivos docentes) presentan particularidades, continuidades y tensiones en diversas dimensiones: organizacionales, curriculares, niveles de participación docente y estudiantil, gobierno de la educación y autonomía. A su vez, y en forma particular las políticas, las reformas y los docentes delinean imaginarios sobre los sentidos que deberán configurar los futuros maestros (Bentancur, 2007; Mancebo, 2007; Bordoli, 2015, 2019a, 2019b, 2020). En las dimensiones indicadas se identifican rasgos diferenciales que se materializan, entre otros, en los diseños curriculares de la formación de maestros al tiempo que articulan ciertos significantes que estructuran redes de sentidos e imaginarios particulares que se presentan en diferentes grados de tensión. En esta exposición, particularmente, se analizan los diseños curriculares de formación de los maestros de 1977, 1986 y 2023 con el objetivo de identificar el lugar, las funciones, los sentidos y los imaginarios adjudicados a los futuros maestros de enseñanza primaria. El trabajo de investigación se nutre de los aportes del Análisis Político del Discurso (Laclau, E. y Mouffe, Ch., 1987; Mouffe, 2009), los estudios de Laval y Dardot (2015), Merklen (2013) y de los estudios curriculares (de Alba, 1998; Frigerio, 1994, etc.). Desde estas y las perspectivas analíticas y a través del estudio de documentos contextuales, los diseños curriculares de los tres momentos seleccionados (1977, 1986, 2023) se identifican particularidades y tensiones en los modos e imaginarios articulados en torno a los maestros. Importa subrayar que los diversos imaginarios sobre los modos de “ser maestro” buscan otorgar identidades individuales y colectivas que se articulan en complejos y no lineales procesos históricos en los que se desarrollan mecanismos de actualización e hibridación de sentidos en tensión. [1] En Uruguay, la última dictadura cívico-militar se extendió de 1973 a 1984. El quiebre institucional se efectuó el 27 de junio de 1973.

Ireland occupied a liminal space in history, characterised intermittently as both an integral member and benefactor of the British Empire as well as its most troublesome colony. Within this, the national system of education in Ireland exhibited many “colonial features” (Howe, 2008) as instigated by its designers in Westminster. For close to a century before the achievement of political independence and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, primary school education in Ireland was largely characterised by efforts of political, cultural and linguistic assimilation to British imperial ideology (Lyons and Moloney, 2019).

As in many post-colonial contexts, political independence in Ireland provided an opportunity for the reversal of colonial policy in all strata of society. In educational terms, immediate moves were made to decolonise primary education by reviewing and revising the existing progressive and child-centred curriculum introduced under the colonial administration in 1900 and to revert to (or more accurately create) a pre-colonial imaginary or “island of authenticity” as termed by White (2010:7). Central to this decolonising process was Rev. Professor Timothy Corcoran, a Jesuit priest and Professor of Education at University College Dublin who occupied an influential national position in clerical, educational and language revival circles. Corcoran acted as the sole external advisor and influencer on both curriculum programme conferences which reported in 1922 and 1926 respectively (National Programme Conference, 1922; 1926).

This paper explores and critiques the role, impact and legacy of Corcoran in the decolonising of primary education in Ireland in the 1920s. Central to this exploration will be a review and analysis of his prolific writings on education, which drew on historical, contemporary and transnational ideas and discourses. This analysis is presented across four key themes: Irish language curriculum policy; knowledge in the curriculum; pedagogy in the curriculum; and conceptualisation of the teacher and child in the curriculum. Overall Corcoran’s writings reveal a traditional and conservative philosophy of education, rooted in both nationalist and Catholic discourses. The modus operandi used by Corcoran across various spatialities and temporalities to yield such influence in the framing of the primary school curricula will also be delineated, as will efforts and acts of resistance to Corcoran’s views.

This paper ultimately argues that the curricula which emerged in the Irish Free State in the 1920s, which represented a reversal of the previous progressive, child-centred and broad-based Revised Programme of Instruction (Commissioners of National Education, 1902), were primarily influenced by the thinking of Corcoran more than any other educator in the era. This was owing to his powerful and influential role and position, and his capacity to present “authoritative evidence” (National Programme Conference, 1926:10) that substantiated his assertions. Moreover, as the next substantive curricular revisions did not take place until the early 1970s, his impact and legacy had a long-lasting effect on the education of successive generations of children in Ireland in the twentieth century.