TRENDS/CASES

FROM THE INTENDED TO THE

IMPLEMENTED CURRICULUM

IN ARGENTINA:

REGULATION AND PRACTICE

Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

The complex relation between educational policies as laid down by the State and the
effects of these policies in practice has been a challenge for educational research for
some time. Even finding out the purposes and intentions of a given policy in itself is
quite a difficult task, since policies are the result of negotiations between different
agents that participate in the formulation process, and the final product is often not
necessarily a coherent and univocal one. Furthermore, policies are not transmitted into
a vacuum. There are social, institutional and personal circumstances affecting the way
in which policies are understood by those who (are supposed to) put them into
practice.

Original language: English

Silvina Gvirtz (Argentina)
Ph.D. in Education and Director of the School of Education, Universidad de San Andrès. Invited
professor in various universities in Latin America. She has published several articles in inter-
national journals and nine books, the most recent one of which is Crisis and hope: the educational
hopscotch of Latin America. She is Fellow 2003 of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
E-mail: sgvirtz@udesa.edu.ar.
Jason Beech (United Kingdom)
Lecturer and Executive Co-ordinator of the School of Education, Universidad de San Andrés. He
has an M.A. in comparative education with distinction from the Institute of Education, University
of London. He has obtained several prizes and scholarships, such as the Nicholas Hans Scholarship
and the Overseas Research Studentship Award in the United Kingdom. He is currently a Ph.D.
candidate at the Institute of Education in comparative education.

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

372 Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

As a result of this, Ball suggests that policies can be seen as texts that Ôare encoded in
complex ways (via struggles, compromises, authoritative public interpretations and
reinterpretations) and decoded in complex ways (via actorsÕ interpretations and meanings
in relation to their history, experiences, skills, resources and contexts)Õ (Ball, 2000,
p. 1831). Thus, the effects of a given policy cannot be understood simply by reading the
policy texts. Rather, it is necessary to look at the interpretations that these texts have been
given in practice in order to determine the coherence or incoherence between a policy
and its impact.
Placing this problematique into a temporal and spatial context, this article offers an
analysis of the relation between the intended and the implemented curriculum for
primary education in Argentina, from the origins of the Argentine education system to
the present day.
Before moving on to the analysis of the Argentine case, some methodological issues
will be raised. Taking up BallÕs point that policies can be seen as texts (Ball, 2000), we
suggest that in order to Ôread the full textÕ of a given curricular policy it is not enough to
analyse curricular documents and materials. Rather, we would like to introduce the
concept of curricular regulation as a method of analysis that includes not only the
processes defining a given curricular policy and its contents, but also the processes
through which this curricular policy is transmitted to the agents who have to put into
practice, and the processes through which this curriculum is enforced. Furthermore, we
suggest that the process of curricular regulation can be read through an analysis of what
we shall call instruments of curricular regulation (Gvirtz, 2002). These are:
1. The policy of curricular definition (and of general management of the education
system) indicating the tasks for the different agents in the decision-making process
concerning the objectives and contents of education.
2. The documents and curricular materials per se (their structure and substantive
contents) as the main ways of presenting the official curricular policy.
3. The policy of textbook circulation: control over one of the most important means
of communicating (together with curricular documents) the objectives and contents
of education.
4. The policies of teacher education and certification.
5. The supervision/assessment system of education: the fundamental mechanism for
controlling/regulating the relationship between the official curricular policy pro-
posed and the one effectively implemented.
Thus, it is through an analysis of these instruments of curricular regulation that we shall
test the argument of this article. Our point of view is that two models of curricular
regulation can be identified in the history of the Argentine education system. The first
model was the initial centralized system that was designed when the Argentine education
system was being consolidated and expanded a period that started during the last
decades of the nineteenth century and started to collapse around the 1970s. This model
sought to guarantee the teaching of the same content to every student in order to
homogenize their instruction in values, language and the other knowledge necessary for
participation in civic life. The basic idea was to give equal opportunities to students by
offering equal educational contents. This model is analysed in the first part of this paper.

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

 Implemented curriculum in Argentina 373

The second model of curricular regulation appeared in Argentina with the global
educational reform that was implemented following the Ley Federal de Educación,
adopted in 1993. This model was based on the idea that if an education allowing for
social inclusion is sought, the principle of equality of opportunity through homogeneous
education offered to all should be displaced by the principle of ÔequityÕ (equidad),
meaning that children should be offered Ôequivalent opportunitiesÕ that respect their
different cultural backgrounds. The second part of the paper will examine how this
model was implemented in an effort to change the way in which contents were selected
for the Argentine education system.

The centralized model of curricular regulation

It is now widely accepted that the creation of the Argentine education system was part of
the State-led project to build a ÔmodernÕ nation. Within this project, a ÔmodernÕ edu-
cation system was seen as the most appropriate social technology leading to cultural unity
over a vast territory with intense regional disparities. At that time, this cultural diversity
was considered to be a threat by the central power (Tedesco, 1986; Gvirtz, 1991).
The Argentine elite sought to shift from a ÔtraditionalÕ scattered society to a united
ÔmodernÕ nation that was in step with the rest of the world. This project required new
men and women who would be united by their common feeling of love for the Patria
(nation).
Civilización o barbarie was the slogan of Sarmiento, who is considered to be the
founder of the Argentine education system. Two main strategies were used in the quest
for civilizing the country: education and the promotion of European immigration
(Tedesco, 1986). European immigrants were seen as ÔcivilizingÕ agents that would bring
their culture, order and attitude towards work with them, serving as a model for the
Argentine population. One of the most important Argentine intellectuals of the time,
Alberdi said: ÔEach European who arrives at our shores brings more civilization in his
habits which he then communicates to our inhabitants than many books of phi-
losophyÕ (cited in Tedesco, 1986, p. 27).
However, immigrants eventually became another obstacle in the homogenizing pro-
cess. The new arrivals introduced many different cultural traditions, languages and
values, adding to the existing cultural diversity. Thus, the new immigrant groups rein-
forced the need for a public primary school that would ÔconvertÕ all of the population
into a common cultural mould and guarantee political stability, legitimizing the power of
the central State (Tedesco, 1986).
In this context the model of curricular regulation that was implemented sought to
guarantee the same content to every student in order to provide everyone with the same
culture and promote national identity. The basic idea was that every school should
behave as one, teaching the same content at the same time and with the same methods to
every student on the Argentine territory (Narodowski, 1999b).
This was, therefore, a highly centralized model of curricular regulation in which the
national State monopolized all decisions about the objectives and contents of education.
Curricular documents were designed by the State and sent directly to schools, or rather to

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

374 Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

teachers, who had to follow in every detail the national curricular prescriptions.
Meanwhile, all other agents, such as provincial governments, municipalities, schools and
teachers, were left out of any meaningful participation in decisions on what and how to
teach.
The first study plans and programmes (as curricular documents were called in those
days) promoted an encyclopaedic culture by emphasizing contents related to the
provision of information and facts. A large number of highly detailed curricular contents
were included. These contents were grouped into many areas (usually about fourteen at
both primary and secondary levels) and organized into a matrix of two variables (dis-
cipline and school time), which resulted in greater control and homogenization of school
activities. Furthermore, these curricular documents not only specified the contents that
had to be taught, but also prescribed in great detail how much time had to be spent in
each topic and the teaching methods to be employed.
However, curricular policies and planning of the curriculum did not begin and end
here. Other instruments of curricular regulation were used by the State to guarantee
homogeneous education for every student in Argentina. These instruments were: control
of the circulation of textbooks in schools; the regulation of the teaching profession; and a
system of supervision aimed at controlling the implementation of the prescribed cur-
riculum.
The State approved all books that could be used in schools. No book could be
distributed in school if it did not have the authorization of the government. For example,
from the late nineteenth century until 1940 the National Council of Education, through
its Didactic Commission:

prescribed and adopted the most adequate textbooks for public schools, encouraging its
publishing and improvement by means of contests and stimuli in order to ensure its uniform
and permanent adoption at reasonable prices for a period of no less than two years (Ministry of
Justice and Public Instruction, 1907).

In this way the national State enhanced its control over the contents that were taught in
schools, extending its influence over the tiniest details.
However, more often than not, the selection of textbooks that would be used in
schools had much more to do with the lobbying skills of publishing companies, personal
relations, and political favours and affinities than with the actual content of the books.
Nevertheless, control over the content of books used for teaching in schools was
noticeable (Rein, 1998).
Another fundamental strategy of the central State was to have a teaching force that was
as homogeneous as possible, so that teachers were interchangeable and any deviation in
the transmission of the unifying culture could be avoided (Alliaud, 1993). The State
assumed responsibility for the education of teachers, based on the French model of the
normal school. In 1869, the first normal school was founded in the city of Paraná. By
1885 the State provided eighteen of these teacher-training institutions (at least one in
each of the fourteen provinces), and by 1889 there were 34 of them in Argentina (Gvirtz,
1991).

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

 Implemented curriculum in Argentina 375

The State encouraged teachers to adopt a clearly defined role: to transmit the dom-
inant culture and to fight against ÔignoranceÕ (defined as the perpetuation of any culture
that was different from the one promoted by schools). Teachers were expected to behave
as ÔmodelsÕ, teaching through their exemplifying conduct. ÔHaving in mind that the
example teaches more than the principle [...], what is demanded from teachers, is not
knowledge, but rather that they have the talent to communicateÕ (Memorias, cited in
Gvirtz, 1991).
Thus, teachers not only had to transmit particular knowledge for citizenship (such as
the Ôthree RsÕ), but one of their main tasks was also to inculcate certain norms, values and
principles. Consequently, it was the moral aptitudes of the teacher that were stressed in
the normal schools. Emphasis was placed on patriotism, altruism and generosity, hy-
giene, a good character, especially ÔgoodÕ habits and a love for order (Gvirtz, 1991).
The homogenization of the teaching force was further enhanced through the system of
certification. Only those who had been trained in a normal school were allowed to teach
in Argentine schools.
However, it was not enough to have tight control over teacher education and ensuring
that only certified teachers could work in public schools. The StateÕs gaze was also
extended over teachersÕ work. The actual implementation of the contents and teaching
strategies imposed on teachers were controlled through a strict supervision system. This
system was set up by the central agencies of the education system who sent a body of
supervisors to visit schools. Since it was compulsory for students in primary schools to
have a single notebook in which every activity that took place in the class had to be
written down, it was easy for supervisors to do their job. By looking at a number of
pupilsÕ notebooks, supervisors could find out what was being taught in class, thus ver-
ifying that the norms set by the State were being followed, and that no unauthorized
matter was being taught. In addition, supervisors controlled teachersÕ work by attending
lessons and reviewing the teachersÕ Ôlesson bookÕ a notebook in which teachers de-
scribed every detail of the work they carried out with their students. Thus, it was through
the control of educational processes (and not of educational outcomes) that the State
sought to guarantee the effective implementation of its curricular policy.
The model of curricular regulation in Argentina therefore followed a vertical logic
allowing hardly any room for curricular adaptations by schools or teachers. They were
expected to be the obedient executors of a series of detailed instructions designed by the
State. This worked very well, bearing in mind that one of the main objectives of the
Argentine education system (and other systems in Latin America) was the homogeni-
zation of the population. This strikingly heterogeneous population of immigrants, na-
tives and criollos were to share in the construction of a unique nation and citizenship. The
particularity of the Latin American case is that for the most part it was the State, through
the provision of schooling and the diffusion of a common language and certain shared
values, that was responsible for the construction of the nation (Ozlak, 1982).
However, this model of curricular regulation led to several problems. The first was that
the way in which knowledge was presented in studentsÕ notebooks was very different
from the way in which this same knowledge was arranged in curricular documents. Thus,
the supervisorsÕ work was not as easy as it seemed, for curricular documents were divided

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

376 Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

into subjects, while notebooks presented knowledge by date and by number of activities,
The structure of the studentsÕ notebooks was based on three central concepts: date,
activities and school subject. The date was listed at the beginning of each new school day.
Consequently, just by looking at a notebook it was possible to see how much work had
been done by students (and by teachers) each day. In the second place, knowledge
transmitted in class was indicated in the notebook by the activities that the students had
carried out. Every activity was recorded in the notebook, respecting a numerical order.
This revealed how many exercises students had completed in a day, a week or a month.
Finally, knowledge in the notebook was structured by subject. However, the numerical
order of activities had precedence over the discipline.
The second problem with the centralized model of curricular regulation was related to
the Ôannual school calendarÕ. The school calendar, established by the State, prescribed the
celebrations that had to take place in schools to commemorate certain historical, religious
and other events. This agenda had a significant impact on the implemented curriculum,
since contents that were included in the official curriculum had to be displaced or
postponed in order to make room for these events. In some cases, the school calendar was
so extensive that it impeded the teaching of the official curriculum. For example, in 1982
the school calendar fixed 81 commemorative days over 180 school days (De Titto,
2002). Apart from the most important national holidays, such as Independence Day,
commemorations also included, for example, womenÕs day, animalsÕ day, the day of the
Red Cross, firemenÕs day, and so on.
Thus, the way in which knowledge was structured in curricular documents and in
notebooks, and the implementation of the school calendar represent two problems
revealing incoherence among different instruments for curricular regulation in the
foundational model. It is also possible to identify a number of other problems. For
instance, even in this highly centralized model, schools and teachers generally discarded
certain themes that were included in official study plans, and included some non-official
contents into their lessons.
Furthermore, the time assigned to different subjects in the study plans and pro-
grammes was not always respected by teachers in practice. Schools and teachers con-
sidered certain subjects to be more important than others and therefore worthy of deeper
analysis and more of the studentsÕ time. This can be observed by looking at studentsÕ
notebooks from those times, and by counting the time spent and the number of exercises
dedicated to the teaching of a given content (or subject). For example, De Titto (2002)
showed that in the City of Buenos Aires teachers devoted much more time to language
and mathematics than the amount actually established in the official curriculum, gen-
erally to the detriment of the natural and social sciences.
The gap between regulations and practice can also be observed by looking at the time
at which certain contents were taught. Even though the teaching of certain themes was
prescribed for a particular year (and grade), an analysis of studentsÕ notebooks showed
that the year in which these themes were first introduced to students did not always
correspond with the curricular guidelines. In addition, in many cases, the sequence in
which specific contents within a subject had to be taught was not always respected (De
Titto, 2002).

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

 Implemented curriculum in Argentina 377

Finally, teachers also resisted the ideological content in curricular documents. For
example, during the government of Peron, different political contents were included in
the school curriculum. Amongst these contents was the reading of Evita PeronÕs auto-
biographical book The reason of my life. Looking at studentsÕ textbooks it is possible to see
that these contents were included in different subjects, such as language, and used in
activities such as dictation. When extracts from the book were included in these activities,
the only errors that were corrected by most teachers were spelling mistakes. Thus, the text
lost its political meaning and became an auxiliary medium for other aims: learning how
to write. In this way, EvitaÕs text could have been replaced by any other text (Gvirtz,
1999).
Thus, there were several problems with the implementation of the foundational
centralized model of curricular regulation. Nevertheless, this model was very effective in
attaining its objectives. In the 1930s, Argentina was considered to be sixth in terms of the
level of literacy among its population compared to other countries in the world; and in
the 1960s 80% of the school-age population in Argentina was attending school (Tedesco,
1986).
The crisis of this model began to appear in the 1970s when public opinion noted that,
although the education system had increased its coverage, the level of learning amongst
the different social sectors was not the same. The notion of equal opportunities was
questioned. Providing the same kind of education to every child was seen as an unfair
strategy that would only reproduce social and other inequalities. Difference was no
longer seen as a problem. On the contrary, differences had to be respected, and therefore
a centralized and homogenous curriculum was no longer viable. School contents had to
be adapted to the different regions, schools and students. On the other hand, changes in
society meant that the school was transmitting information that was out of date and
lacking in relevance.
In this context, many attempts were made to change the centralized model of cur-
ricular regulation between the 1970s and the 1980s. However, curricular renovation
continued to be carried out under the old system of a centralized curriculum with highly
specified contents that teachers had to execute without much consideration of the dif-
ferences among students.
It was only in the 1990s, with the wide-ranging reforms that were implemented in
Argentina (and in most other Latin American countries), that the centralized model of
curricular regulation was abandoned and replaced by a decentralized model.

The decentralized model of curricular regulation

The Ley Federal de Educación, passed in 1993, aimed at a complete reform of the
Argentine education system, including curricular regulation. Influenced by the proposals
of international agencies (Beech, 2002), the overall rationale that guided this reform was
that the design of general objectives and the processes of control should be as centralized
as possible, whilst the execution of educational services should be as decentralized as
possible. This model would guarantee in theory an improvement in the quality of
the services that are offered to citizens and an optimal use of resources.

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

378 Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

This shift in the way that the objectives of the education system were established, and
in the way that compliance with these objectives would be evaluated, resulted in sig-
nificant changes in the way that the curriculum was regulated. These changes were
reflected in all of the instruments of curricular regulation that have been analysed in the
previous section.
In the first place, a new policy of curriculum definition was established. The central
State was no longer in charge of defining in every detail the content that should be taught
in all Argentine schools. Instead, it was the Federal Council of Education, formed by all
the provincial ministers of education, that established a series of common basic contents
(CBCs) defining the minimum knowledge and abilities that every Argentine student
should acquire in school. These CBCs then acted as a guideline for each of the provinces
to elaborate its own curricular design. At the same time, the provincial curricular design
should leave in theory some space for schools and teachers to include a number of
differentiated contents according to the locality of the school and the characteristics of
students and teachers (Braslavsky, 1998). Thus, the reform not only prescribed a reor-
ganization of the levels of curricular definition, but it also included new parties, such as
provinces, schools and teachers, in the process of defining the curriculum.
This process of curricular definition resulted in the production of very different
curricular materials compared to the prescriptive encyclopaedic materials of the previous
model. The Federal Council rejected encyclopaedic contents by stressing that, in the
selection of contents, the Ôeagerness to include everythingÕ should be abandoned
(Braslavsky, 1998). It was established instead that contents included in the CBCs should
promote the acquisition of competencies such as creativity, autonomy, flexibility and
problem-solving, and that the inclusion of information should be subordinated to the
competencies that were to be transmitted.
Another significant shift in the model of curricular regulation was the total deregulation
of textbook distribution. As democracy returned to Argentina in the 1980s, the National
Ministry of Education ceased to have the right to supervise and decide which type of books
would or would not be available in schools. Instead, the production and circulation of
school texts was left to market forces. This had deep implications for the ways in which the
educational reform in Argentina was finally implemented (as will be shown further on).
Following the global reform of the education system, it was expected that teachers
would work in quite a different way, transmitting competencies instead of information,
having a certain degree of autonomy to decide contents and teaching strategies, and
participating in the preparation of the schoolÕs institutional project. Thus, teacher
education was also reformed. In the first place, teachers in the system had to be re-trained
to respond to the new demands. A massive scheme of in-service training was planned to
include all of the 650,000 teachers in the system. The scheme that was co-ordinated by
the Red Federal de Formación Docente Continua (Federal Network for In-service
Teacher Training) was based on a credit system that included a number of salary and
promotion incentives for teachers who participated in the courses offered by the network.
Secondly, a new curriculum for pre-service teacher education was defined along the
lines of the reform: the Federal Council established a number of common basic contents
that all Argentine teachers should acquire (very much based on the transmission of

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

 Implemented curriculum in Argentina 379

competencies and the new roles of teachers). This curricular document left once again,
in theory some space for provinces and teacher-training institutions to decide on the
detailed contents of teacher education. In addition, the State lost the monopoly of
teacher education. Although this was not a direct consequence of the educational reform
of the 1990s, in this decade 60% of teachers were trained in private institutions. Thus,
the homogenization of teacher-training practices was abandoned.
Finally, the strategies used to regulate and control the effective implementation of
curricular policy in practice were also changed. The new approach, based on the
decentralization of the provision of education, and more autonomy for local States and
schools to attain certain pre-set goals, increased the importance of an evaluation system
that periodically controls the quality of education in its different jurisdictions and levels.
The National System of Evaluation (SINEC) was founded in 1993 for the evaluation of
primary and secondary education. SINEC remained under the responsibility of the
National Ministry of Education (a separate agency was not created). This implied a
significant shift away from the supervision of the educational processes to the control of
educational outcomes. The logic behind this shift was that, as long as the students
learned the minimum contents established by the State, the strategies used by schools and
teachers to transmit these contents were of no concern to the State. Furthermore, dif-
ferent methods to teach different types of students were promoted in the StateÕs regu-
lations. As mentioned before, difference started to be celebrated as something positive,
and was no longer seen as a threat to national unity.
Thus, overall, the new decentralized model of curricular regulation covered the def-
inition of school contents, including: new agents such as provinces, schools and teachers;
the selection of textbooks; and some aspects of teacher education. Meanwhile, the State
retained the power to decide on the minimum contents that all students must acquire,
and to control the effective acquisition of these minimum contents in practice.
However, this new model of curricular regulation also encountered some practical
problems. In the same way as those for the centralized model of curricular regulation, the
problems were of two kinds. In the first place, there was a lack of coherence amongst the
different instruments of curricular regulation; on the other hand, other problems
highlighted incoherence between the model and its practical implementation.
One of the biggest problems with the decentralized model of curricular regulation was
the poor co-ordination between the policy of curricular definition, the curricular
materials and the policy of textbook circulation. Even though the CBCs were supposed
to act as guidelines for the design of the actual curricula in the provinces and then in
schools, in practice they became the new curricular design used by schools. A number of
reasons can explain this situation:
1. The contents were not defined for each year, but for three-year cycles. As far as
different readings of ÔminimumÕ contents could be carried out, they could be seen as
quite flexible. However, so much of the content was considered to be ÔbasicÕ that it
became almost impossible for schools to teach anything other than the basic contents.
2. Once the basic common contents were approved by the central authority, they were
not sent to the provincial educational authorities. Instead, the CBCs were dis-
tributed directly to all schools in the country.

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

380 Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

3. When public schoolteachers received the CBCs in their schools, they followed the
traditional logic of the Argentine education system they considered this docu-
ment to be the curriculum that they had to follow.
4. At the same time, some provinces did not modify their curricular designs because
they thought that they already complied with the CBCs, whilst those that did
change their curricula took several years to do so.
5. Publishing companies could not adapt to each provincial market. Consequently,
they published the same textbooks based on the CBCs for every province.
In summary, the CBCs were taken as the new curricula in Argentine schools. As a result
of the slowness in defining the details of the curricula in the provinces and in schools, in
many ways the new textbooks performed this function and became a guide for teachers
when planning their lessons.
Another problem with the decentralized model of curricular regulation was found in
co-ordination between the evaluation system and the CBCs. The national tests that were
designed did not pay enough attention to the contents established in the CBC. Fur-
thermore, the problem was not only related to the selection of the contents that were
being evaluated, but also to the relevance that was attributed to some contents in the
tests, since this did not match the importance that these same contents were given in the
CBCs (Larripa, 2003). In addition, it is worth mentioning that several provinces
implemented evaluation systems that are parallel to the national system. Moreover, all of
the Argentine provinces have retained the system of supervision that controls every detail
of the educational processes. Thus, some authors refer to the Ôhyper-regulationÕ of the
Argentine education system given that these overlapping systems of control can result in
the same school being evaluated in the same year by the national system, by the pro-
vincial system, and by the supervisors who periodically visit the institution (Narodowski,
1999a).
Finally, the incoherence between the decentralized model of curricular regulation and
its implementation in practice can be seen in its effects on the scheme of in-service
training established for teachers. As already mentioned, this massive scheme was based on
a credit system. The number of credits that each course would award participants de-
pended on the length (in time) of the course, and not on the relevance of what the
teachers actually learned. In order for a course to be part of the credit system, it had to be
authorized by the network, but the authorization system was far from being clear and
transparent. Consequently, the courses that were offered to teachers were not related to
the needs of the reform. Rather, it was the lobbying capacity of the teachers who attended
the courses, or of the institutions that offered them, that determined the inclusion of a
given course within the scheme.
Since public schools never became the Ôagents of changeÕ, teachers attended courses to
improve their individual interests, not considering the needs of the school in which they
worked. For example, the School of Teacher Training of Buenos Aires City offered
courses such as tango, folklore and handicrafts for teachers of all disciplines, and awarded
many credits to those who attended. In addition, the criteria for selecting the lecturers
who taught in this institution were not transparent, even though many of these lecturers

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

 Implemented curriculum in Argentina 381

were respected professionals. It can be said that teacher training has been one of the
weakest aspects of the reform.
Thus, even though at the level of official rhetoric all of the instruments of curricular
regulation were changed, many of the characteristics of the previous centralized model
survived the reform. Consequently, some authors have described this new model as a
Ôhybrid modelÕ (Braslavsky, 1999).
Nevertheless, what is important to point out, from our point of view, is that the
curricular reform in Argentina could be defined as an Ôunfulfilled reformÕ. By looking at
the policy of curricular definition, and at the curricular documents per se, one could come
to the conclusion that the intention of the reform was to decentralize the definition of
contents for Argentine schools, devolving part of these responsibilities to the provinces,
schools and teachers. However, as soon as the other instruments of curricular regulation
are brought into the analysis, it becomes clear that such a decentralization did not
happen in practice. The centralized logic of the Argentine education system survived the
reform and overtook some of the instruments of curricular regulation that were changed.

Some concluding remarks

Returning to the methodological issues that were raised in the introduction to this paper,
we would like to suggest that, when studying curricular policy, the analysis that has been
offered on the Argentine case reveals the importance of taking into account all of the
instruments of curricular regulation existing in an education system.
If an analysis such as the one offered here were to be conducted only by looking at the
curricular documents per se, it is quite clear that the conclusions would have been very
different: a very significant change would have been observed between the foundational
centralized model and the decentralized model implemented in the 1990s in Argentina.
Moreover, it is important to look not only at all of the instruments of curricular regu-
lation, but also, and fundamentally, at the coherence and co-ordination that exists
between these instruments, and at how these instruments are interpreted in practice.
Of course, the instruments of curricular regulation that we have used to examine the
Argentine case will not necessarily exist in every education system. Different cultures and
different structures of educational governance should result in diverse instruments and in
distinct relations amongst these devices. It is important to think about these issues when
conducting research on curricular policy, but also it is especially important to consider
curricular regulation as a variable when curricular policies are designed. Maybe using
such an approach when defining reforms could help to narrow the gap between the
intended and the implemented curriculum.

References

Alliaud, A. 1993. Los maestros y su historia: los origenes del magisterio Argentino [Teachers and their
history: the origins of the Argentine teaching profession]. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de
América Latina.

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004

382 Silvina Gvirtz and Jason Beech

Ball, S. 2000. What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. In: Ball, S. ed. Sociology of
education: major themes volume IV, pp. 1830 1841. London: Routledge Falmer.
Beech J. 2002. Docentes del futuro: la influencia de las agencias internacionales en las reformas de
formación docente en Argentina y Brasil en los 90 [Future teachers: the influence of
international agencies on the reform of teacher training in Argentina and Brazil in the
1990s]. In: Lázaro Lorente, L.M. ed. Lecturas de educación comparada y educación inter-
nacional. Valencia, Spain: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat de Valencia.
Braslavsky. C. 1998. El proceso contemporaneo de transformación curricular en la República
Argentina [Contemporary processes of curricular reforms in Argentina]. Madrid: OEI.
http://www.reduc.cl/raes. nsf/4211b585503d5ece04256843007c08e2/68aad23d7c97d444
0425683a0068b2a2/ $FILE/rae08.368.pdf. (September 2000).
Braslavsky, C. 1999. Re-haciendo escuelas: hacia un nuevo paradigma en la educación latinoamer-
icana [Re-making schools: towards a new paradigm in Latin American education]. Buenos
Aires: Santillana.
De Titto, R. 2002. Polı́ticas curriculares y prácticas docentes en la ciudad de Buenos Aires entre 1960 y
1990 [Curricular policies and teachersÕ practices in Buenos Aires city between 1960 and
1990]. Masters thesis, Universidad de San Andrés, School of Education.
Gvirtz, S. 1991. Nuevas y viejas tendencias en la docencia (1945 1955) [New and old trends in the
teaching profession]. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina.
Gvirtz, S. 1999. El discurso escolar a través de los cuadernos de clase, Argentina 1930 1970 [School
lessons through classroom notebooks, Argentina 1930 1970]. Buenos Aires: Eudeba.
Gvirtz, S. 2002. Curricular reforms in Latin America with special emphasis on the Argentine case.
Comparative education (Abingdon, UK) , vol. 38, no. 4.
Larripa, S. 2003. El Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad de Educativa (SINEC): acerca de
la comparabilidad de sus resultados. Argentina 1995 2000. [The National System of Eval-
uation of Educational Quality: concerning the comparability of its results. Argentina,
1995 2000]. Masters thesis, Universidad de San Andrés, School of Education.
Ministry of Justice and Public Instruction. 1907. El monitor de la educación común [The control of
common education], p. 375. Buenos Aires.
Narodowski, M. 1999a. Hiper-regulación de la escuela pública y desregulación de la escuela privada
[Over-regulation of the public school and deregulation of private school]. Buenos Aires:
Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Institucional/Fundación Gobierno y Sociedad.
Narodowski, M. 1999b. Infancia y poder: la conformación de la pedagogı́a moderna [Childhood and
power: the formation of modern teaching practice]. Buenos Aires: Aique.
Ozlak, O. 1982. La conquista del orden polı́tico y la formación histórica del estado argentino [The
control of public order and the historic creation of the Argentine State]. Buenos Aires:
Centro de Estudios Estado y Sociedad.
Rein, M. 1998. Peronismo, populismo y polı́tica: Argentina, 1943 1955 [Peronism, populism and
politics. Argentina, 1943 1955]. Buenos Aires: Editorial Belgrano, Universidad de Bel-
grano.
Tedesco, J.-C. 1986. Educación y sociedad en la Argentina (1880 1945) [Education and society in
Argentina (1880 1945)]. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Solar.

Prospects, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, September 2004