Psychology education in Argentina

Abstract

In this chapter, we aim to make a description of the history and current situation of Psychology Education in undergraduate and postgraduate programs at universities in Argentina.In the first part, we offer a historical introduction in which we explain the social and political interests that projected and supported the creation of psychology undergraduate programs in Argentina in the middle twentieth century. We describe the main features of the curriculum, the role of psychologist´ social definition process, and the scope of competencies for the psychology degree. We also portray the process of expansion of Argentine university system, occured after 1983, when democratic government was recovered, and gave remarkable opportunities for the psychology programs to rapidly increase their number.In the second part, we focus on the present-day situation of psychology programs. We provide with an updated list of the undergraduate programs at national and private universities. In addition, we supply with an overview of the postgraduate psychology programs, namely specialization, master and doctorate degrees. We discuss the critical problems resulting after the process of assessment and accreditation of undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programs, within the federal legal framework of the National Council of University Evaluation and Accreditation (CONEAU).