Social attitudes during the last military regimen in Argentina: the case of Coronel Pringles.

Abstract

In September 1976, a decree of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Education prohibited the use of a pedagogical method called "Education and Liberation" throughout the provincial territory. A group of teachers from the Colegio Sagrado Corazón of Coronel Pringles, Buenos Aires, demanded the immediate fulfillment of the official order. The lack of speed in its application by the board of directors was the beginning of a conflict that soon surpassed the institutional sphere. In December the school was intervened and throughout 1977 the religious left the city. The case remained hidden until in 2002 a group of young Pringlenses conducted an audiovisual investigation about the events that occurred in the city during the last military government in Argentina (1976-1983), and they set out to examine what had happened in the Catholic school. The testimonies collected twenty-five years after the events have provided data unknown until then, and are analyzed in this investigation. In addition to the teachers and the board of directors of the school, it is possible to state that various actors of the Pringlense society have participated in the conflict and have contributed to the removal of the religious from the school.