Narratives of the argentine far-right: the secondary school teacher, agent and enemy of change

Abstract

In this article we analyze the narratives about the secondary school teacher figure configured in the educational policies of two Argentine jurisdictions currently governed by right-wing parties, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, taking into consideration the current national far-right governmental framework. From the approach of the anthropology of public policies, it is glimpsed how teaching praxis is located at the epicenter of reforms. Discursively, teachers are interpellated, from political-educational discourse, in a contradictory manner, as the main agent of inclusion and innovation, and simultaneously as an enemy of change. It is concluded that this narrative dialogues with historical tensions around teaching identity, and focuses on individual aspects of practice, neglecting its structural conditions and holding teachers responsible for the transformation of secondary school. Thus, teaching subjectivity and performance are shaped, at a material and symbolic level, by educational policies.