Strategies for reaching the blind spots of the dispositive of sexuality in the reading school texts for children in Spain and Colombia from 1900 to 1960

• Main Author: Federico Guillermo Serrano López
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: FahrenHouse 2015-01-01
• Series: Espacio, Tiempo y Educación
• Subjects: historia de la sexualidad; historia de la infancia; historia de los manuales escolares; historia de la intimidad; historia de la individualidad
• Online Access: http://www.espaciotiempoyeducacion.com/ojs/index.php/ete/article/view/40

Several strategies of control of child’s environment had as pretext the risks that, it was said, had the early discover of sexuality for the health and the education of the moral character of children. These strategies form part of what Michel Foucault calls the dispositive of sexuality. However, there were situations and spaces of difficult surveillance for the agents of authority: the encounters with other kids at the school and the streets, the contact with adults different from the parents and teachers, as well as the exposition of the children to manifestations of popular culture perceived as dangerous: songs, jokes, shows and books. Based on the compared analysis of ninety of the most representative reading texts for the primary school of this period, in both countries, this paper points out the strategies that the agents of authority used for reaching the blind spots of children’s routines. It was found that, even though during the entire period culturally controlled territories were settled, the outlines of these spaces changed according with the consolidation of the values of the emerging and progressive urban reality. It was concluded the chosen period is significant as transit for the social validation of intimacy and individuality.  How to reference this article Serrano López, F. G. (2015). Estrategias para acceder a los puntos ciegos del dispositivo de sexualidad en los libros de lectura para niños en España y Colombia entre 1900 y 1960. Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, 2(1), pp. 141-162. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14516/ete.2015.002.001.008