History of the journal Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación (ISSN 2346-8866)

 

by Agostina Spano and Bárbara Suhurt

 

The journal Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación was associated with the foundation of Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Its changes and continuities can be interpreted in the light of the different stages that make up the history of the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación [School of Humanities and Educational Sciences] and the degree in Educational Sciences. Ana Barletta (2010) characterizes its trajectory in four stages that comprise its life cycle: 1906–1914, 1914–1919, 1961–1967, 2007 to the present.

The journal was first published in 1906 under the name Archivos de Pedagogía y Ciencias Afines, as an organ of the Pedagogical Section attached to the Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales [School of Legal and Social Sciences] of the recently created university. Its director was Víctor Mercante, who was also the director of the Section. This first period had thirty-nine issues organized in thirteen volumes and lasted until the creation of the Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación [School of Educational Sciences]. It was an editorial endeavor devoted to building and disseminating a scientific imprint in education, as reflected in the articles that reported the results of research framed in experimental psychology, based on the analysis of data collected in laboratories of the Pedagogy Section and in the schools of Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

With the creation of the new Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación, the name of the journal was changed to Archivo de Ciencias de la Educación, marking its second period, which consisted of six issues published between 1915 and 1919. Mercante continued as its director and was also the first Dean of the nascent School. The articles of this period show continuity with the previous scientific mandate, aiming at providing the country’s schools with a teaching staff attuned to science. Mercante based his pedagogy on experimental psychology and a concern for the subject of education, while seeking the professionalization of pedagogy and the training of intellectuals at the service of the State. In this way, pedagogy could promote the reform of the educational system (Dussel, 2013).

After forty years without publication, a third period opened in 1961 under the title Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación (in plural). Its director was Ricardo Nassif for the first four issues and José María Lunazzi for the double issue of 1967, which was the last. This relaunch expressed the efforts and importance of the pedagogical discussions and debates raised in the educational field of that time, within the context of the economic, political and cultural modernization of post-Peronism, where pedagogy and teaching became independent from other fields of study and research. In the issues published during this third stage, two critical points can be observed: the question of the scientific nature of education and the debate around educational reform (Suasnábar, 2014).

The fourth period of Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación began in 2007 and continues to the present. It was presented as an editorial initiative of a group of graduates and teachers of the Department of Educational Sciences who proposed to recover a tradition present in the foundation of pedagogical studies in La Plata, as the genesis of a space for reflection and debate on educational issues of national projection. This stage shows a marked interest in two key elements: the integration of Educational Sciences in the scientific field of social sciences, and the concern for the link with the disciplines with which they are interrelated. Barletta (2010) claims that this moment of the journal reaffirms and promotes the tradition of the “old publications”, but with a renewed impulse that returns it to academic circulation.

References

Barletta, A. M. (2010). La revista Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación: apuntes para una o varias historias institucionales. Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación, 5(5).

Dussel, I. (2013). Víctor Mercante y la producción de un discurso cientí­fico sobre la educación. Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación, 8(8).

Suasnábar, C. (2013). Tradición e internacionalidad: Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación (3ra. Época) y el pensamiento educacional en los años sesenta. Archivos de Ciencias de la Educación, 8(8).