The Pedagogy of Alternation movement in rural schools: From France to Argentina (1968-1983)

Abstract

In the 1930s, an innovative pedagogical movement began in France, organised by families living in rural communities who wanted to stop the alarming emigration of young people to the city. Faced with the lack of responses from the State, French parents, in coordination with other organisations, but mainly with certain members of the Catholic Church, decided to create a new form of school organisation, which they called "Pedagogy of Alternation", whose schools were grouped around the Association Maisons Familiales Rurales.

In Argentina, a group of priests, farmers and civil servants from the province of Santa Fe had travelled to France to learn about this experience and decided to replicate it in the country. At the end of the 1960s, these and other actors promoted the founding of the first Agricultural Family Schools, organized according to establishments French. In this article we will analyse the process of creating these schools in different parts of the country between 1968 and 1983; the way in which they related to international organisations and the state; and the way in which some of the members of this movement were victims of accusations of communism and targets of police surveillance during the last dictatorship (1976-1983).