Educación socialista, modernización científica y organización sindical durante el gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas en México (1934-1940)

Abstract

This articles examines three programs developed during the presidency of General Lázaro Cárdenas namely, the Instituto de Enfermedades Tropicales, the Museos de la Historia, and the Escuelas para Hijos de Trabajadores. The goal of these programs was to offer secondary and scientific education for the working class and the peasantry. They also included plans for bringing “cultura” to the Mexican people. With regards to their general goals and pedagogical methods, the three organisms followed the mandates of “socialist educaiton”. Therefore, it was expected that they were to contribute not only to the secularization of schools but also to the construction of an egalitarian society in the future. Finally, President Cárdenas and his close advisers also expected these institutes to be instrumental in the material and political reconstruction of the country and in the creation of a shared sense of nationhood. Therefore, the three institutes were geared towards the strengthening of the state and the creation of large unions and confederations. This aspect of the program survived even after the idea of socialist education lost its impetus, in the late 1930s.