Learning to behave like a child: nursery schools and kindergärten in Mexico City, 1880-1928

Abstract

In this paper I intend to reflect on the ways in which attempts were made to define, educate and control the behavior of children under six years of age in nursery schools at the end of the 19th century and the Kindergärten of the first decades of the 20th century in Mexico City through prescriptive documents, programs proposed for these institutions, and the ideas that their authors raised regarding how small childhoods should be, learn and act. It will be shown that, from this, within these institutions a specific school culture began to take shape, in which a disciplinary orientation linked to the family took place and a classification of infants based on their physical, intellectual and moral development based on normalities. In this work it is argued that through nursery schools and Kindergärten childhoods constituted a field of projections by intellectuals, doctors and teachers; in which, through and alongside them, a certain type of childhood was built. Thus, this analysis aims to answer the following questions: How children were thought of in the different establishments for their care and education? In what ways was it tried to educate and shape their behavior? Why and for what was it necessary to educate the behavior of children? The methodological perspective consists of identifying the ways in which young children were defined, educated and disciplined in these institutions and how a specific school culture that delineated a particular childhood was configured. The empirical universe consists of normative documents, programs, reports, dissertations, pedagogical treatises and texts by pioneering teachers. The work is based on cultural history, specifically on the perspective of school cultures that encompasses, among other aspects, the practices of order.