Building a democratic education. The Teacher Training College Model in times of revolutionary crisis (1974-1976)

• Main Authors: Luís Mota, António Gomes Ferreira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: FahrenHouse 2015-05-01
• Series: Espacio, Tiempo y Educación
• Subjects: escuelas de magisterio de primaria; formación de profesorado; enseñanza formal; PREC; experiencias pedagógicas
• Online Access: http://www.espaciotiempoyeducacion.com/ojs/index.php/ete/article/view/53

The present paper attempts to analyze the model and meaning of the reform of ordinary primary education, its ends and goals, and to address the ideological debate and clashes present in Teacher Training Colleges during the Ongoing Revolutionary Process (PREC). Experimental times of «pedagogical experiences», of the democratic construction of education, supported by a logic of equal opportunities and openness and intervention in the community, at a time when the educational system received the mandate to democratize success and combat social inequalities (Stoer, Stoleroff, Correia, 1990). Based on the triangulation of information (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000), our analysis focuses on the stakeholders’ discourses published by media specialized in education and teaching, or other, using anamnesis, oral accounts collected through interviews, and the few (still) existing information sources. During the ideological debate and clash, two trends of the revolutionary process competed, that of the basic dynamics and of instrumentalisation. In the context of Teacher Training Colleges, the latter prevailed. It formed a centralised vision of the revolutionary process by fostering a mobilising dynamics, from the centre to the periphery, using the dimensions of academic knowledge, ideological principles and techniques for organising society following the ideological model established. It captured the strength and energy of the basic dynamics, either by outlining first the sense of mobilisation or assessing the propriety of the proposals arising from the mobilisation and adjusting them to its purposes. How to reference this article Mota, L., & Ferreira, A. G. (2015). La construcción de una educación democrática. Las escuelas de magisterio primario en tiempos de crisis revolucionaria (1974-1976). Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, 2(2), 265-288. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14516/ete.2015.002.002.013