Download XIII Simposio Interamericano

Children’s education and schooling: ethnographic contributions to the discussion on family
and community initiatives and the configuration of hegemonic orientations.
Laura Cerletti y Laura Santillán1
In Argentina, during the development and expansion of compulsory schooling, promoted early on
as a state policy (Puiggros, 1990), complex processes of inclusion and exclusion of certain groups
-including the majorities conformed by low-income classes- have taken place. Integration into
school has involved notions about boys and girls, as well as about family life. In the last four
decades, along with the complexities of processes of social inequality, a generalization of a set of
new demands concerning children’s groups of belonging (regarding “participation” and
involvement in school) has taken place. These demands and expectations create complex
scenarios for action, and social groups creatively respond to and appropriate them. This paper
takes into account the hegemonic discourses about parental and community participation as well
as the fields of action of subjects. Our analysis is based on field material from our research in
low-income neighborhoods in the city of Buenos Aires and the greater Buenos Aires 2. This
material is analyzed with an ethnographic theoretical and methodological approach and through
the historization of processes (Rockwell, 2009).
In relation to hegemonic discourses: is the family’s presence in school a natural condition?
In Argentina, the notion about the role families should play in school and in children’s schooling
has grown considerably. According to our work, supervision of tasks in the domestic sphere,
“support” for learning and participation in school celebrations, appointments and meetings are
added to the traditional demands regarding the compliance with compulsory schooling (Santillán
y Cerletti, 2011). Currently, the frequency and conflictivity with which the relationship between
school and family is mentioned in day to day school life, the increase of specialized publications
(produced mainly by international organizations) as well as academic publications, the treatment
of the issue in mass media and the growing presence of projects and programs directed at
improving the relationship between both institutions, point to the presentation of this process as a
“social problem”3 (Cerletti, 2010). Hence, we deem it crucial to understand these discourses as
part of the social construction of a long-term problem that includes processes of various levels of
generality, in diverse dimensions.
In line with our interest in historizing (Sanjek, 1991; Rockwell, 2009), our interviews with
teachers enabled us to understand that these generational changes –interpreted in the light of
periods defined by the teachers themselves- took place between the end of the 50’s and the mid
70’s. During the same period (1956-1976) a broad dissemination of the so-called “psy” theories
1
Researchers at the Anthropology and Education Program. Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas, Facultad de
Filosofía y Letras, Unibersidad de Buenos Aires y CONICET.
2
Our research has been conducted in different stages and scenarios: in a low-income neighborhood/slum (villa) in
the City of Buenos Aires (between 2004 and 2006), in popular settlements in the northwest of the Greater Buenos
Aires (between 2001 and 2006; and from 2008 till present) and conducting and analyzing autobiographical accounts
of teachers, specialists and parents (from 2010 till present).
3
In the way it is described by Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1998 y otros.
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also took place. These theories ascertain a new notion about the relationship between children’s
early experiences within their families (especially in relation to their parents) and the subjective
constitution of the child, with strong implications in the educational sphere. The dissemination of
these theories in our country coincides with the establishment of the degrees in Psychology,
Education Sciences and Psychopedagogy in the city of Buenos Aires (Carli, 2005). At the same
time, the “possibility conditions that enable a link between psychoanalysis and education take
place”. New experiences sustained on these new notions are also created, such as the “schools for
parents”. In the field of education, there was a shift toward a “psychologistic attitude”, and with it
the school positioned itself in a new way in relation to the child. We argue that his has left deep
traces in the training and experiences of teachers, contributing to a “vulgarized” notion of origin
theories, expressed in discourses that determine that a certain form of family life is necessary for
child schooling (Cerletti, 2013). Of course this permeability is neither linear nor direct, but
mediated by complex processes of appropriation and resistance.
Family and community practices in relation to schooling and the education of boys and
girls: courses of action and appropriations.
The flow of hegemonic discourses –constituted as a full discursive front- (Candarello and
Fonseca, 2006), conceals a broad and diverse spectrum of practices that take place in day-to-day
contexts. As we will show in our presentation, ethnographic research reveals other types of
practices, more interstitial, less visible from the standpoint of other logics, or from formal
institutions, that point to the presence of parents and/or children’s tutors in schooling (Neufeld,
2000, Achilli, 2010, Santilllán y Cerletti, 2011). At the same time, the dissemination of
hegemonic discourses contributes to obscure collective practices that fully involve subaltern
sectors. Upon entering the neighborhoods where boys and girls live, there are tangible traces of
endless interventions –both formal and informal- linked to education and schooling. Centers for
after school support4, merenderos5, are just some of the local initiatives aimed at children’s
education. Some practices are in tune with the current governmental policies, tending toward
participation and community promotion, but many of them remain relatively autonomous. The
spaces of after school support are a typical example of these collective forms of –outside schoolschooling (Santillán, 2012). These experiences, carried out by social or political activists or
religious volunteers, become major spaces in relation to the schooling of children among the
popular classes, although not necessarily changing their educational fates. At the same time, we
must look at other local expressions in low-income neighborhoods. Specifically, the centers for
after school support and merenderos promoted by the inhabitants of the neighborhoods
themselves. During our research we encountered contestations and direct actions toward schools
by community leaders. At the same time, we were surprised by the influence that these
community leaders have on parental behavior. In the daily interactions between these leaders and
the rest of the inhabitants, corrective intervention (Donzelot, 1990) is a common denominator.
There is a tendency toward the modification of behaviors and habits of mothers and fathers that is
4
This concept refers to the work carried out by community organizations and neighborhood associations assisting
boys and girls that live in the neighborhood with their school homework, gathering them in private homes and/or the
organization’s buildings.
5
“Merenderos” are community spaces created by territorial organizations or groups of neighbors, where children are
offered a glass of milk after school.
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put into effect through good practices and a pedagogical mode (Rose et al , 2006). The didactic
relations between neighbors include the dissemination (by the residents who are in charge of the
Centers) of precepts and visions regarding preferences that flow on a social level. These daily
relations encompass, simultaneously, the juxtaposition of different logics, including strong class
solidarities.
As we will show in our presentation, the programs and projects created by international
organizations, states and non-governmental organizations regarding the relationship between
family, school and community configure a general material and cultural framework, a
construction of hegemony, that has tangible material effects and reconfigures relations and
subjectivities. Simultaneously, in local expressions, it is possible to see the emergence of
contesting or controversial languages (Rosberry, 2007) that are in turn inscribed in continuously
changing power scenarios.
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