Teacher training in Colombia: two projects, two trends 1874-1903

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is part of the macro research project called "Women in the construction of the Colombian nation" and refers to the professional preparation of women as teachers for all girls schools at two points in Colombia's history in 1874 and in 1903. For more than fifty years, the education of girls and young girls and the training as teachers for women depended on the demands imposed by the political power within two tendencies that, in principle, were irreconcilable: what was proposed by the radical liberals and, in turn, what was proposed by the conservatives.  Part of this tension was observed in EscuelasNormales (a pedagogical school to learn how to teach) as the institutions organised by each of the two powers for the training of teachers within their respective political ideologies.  The main question for this research study was the understanding of the meaning given to the education of female teachers by each of the highlighted political powers, therefore, which were the fundamental differences between the two educational tendencies, both liberal and conservative, referring to the education of female teachers? To answer this question, the Social History, the Decolonial Feminism and the gender category according to Joan Scott and her historical analysis, were considered as the theoretical background in order to read and evaluate such educational proposals. Taking into account the changes and political determinations in the country since the mid-nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century, the sources for the study were based primarily on the reading of the regulations regarding women during the period of the Constitutions of 1863 and 1886, the Civil Code of 1887;  the Organic Decree of Public Instruction of 1870 -ODPI-, Decree 4 of 1874, Law 39 of 1903 and Decree of 1904, as well as the description of the most relevant values within the Colombian culture related to female behaviour and the Concordat between León XIII and Rafael Núñez on the role of the Catholic religion in education.