e peasant child in the literature of rural teachers: race and rural school in the Chaco santiagueño (Santiago del Estero, Argentina, 1900-1940)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse the characterisations and attributes of the peasant child, elaborated by rural teachers who taught in the rural schools of the Chaco santiagueño, Santiago del Estero, Argentina. For this purpose, we used as sources the literature produced by these teachers and published during the first half of the 20th century. There we noticed that the social category of “peasant” hides and makes invisible the ethnic-racial diversity of the children's population, so there is an erasure of the pre-colonial past, supported by
the circulation of ideas about races that begin to appear in the context of the reception of social sciences in Argentina.