Argentina’s last dictatorship in the school curriculum: Changes and challenges of forty years of democracy

Abstract

Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina lived under a dictatorial regime known officially as the “National Reorganization Process.” Its objective was to restructure the whole of society and step up the “fight against subversion” in the country. In order to achieve its goal, the state became a terrorist state (Duhalde 1983 [1999]) carrying out a systematic and clandestine plan of kidnapping, torture, and murder in addition to using other legal or semi-legal mechanisms of persecution, censorship, prison and exile in order to, ultimately, eliminate all political dissidence.Following the return to democracy, human rights organizations campaigns and a set of political and legal decisions, this past became part of a national curriculum associated with the construction of memory and the strengthening of democratic values. So, what the inclusion of the Argentine dictatorial past in the national curriculum looked like? How has it changed over time?The chapter aims at discussing how recent Argentine history was introduced and how it mutated throughout secondary education in the last forty years, the first four decades of uninterrupted democratic ruling in our country. This article assumes that its characteristics and scope can be understood if considered together with a series of political, legal, memorial, historiographic and pedagogical elements, as well as their variations over time. Taking all these factors into consideration will allow us to identify initial dilemmas, interpret successive changes and prepare for present challenges.