Reconstructing the history of teacher training institutions: sources, approaches, and methodological challenges
Keywords:
History of education, teacher training, normal schools, historical methodologyAbstract
The history of teacher training institutions constitutes an expanding field within the history of education, although its reconstruction has oscillated between commemorative chronicle and reductionist macrohistory. The research, based on a qualitative approach complemented with exploratory quantitative elements, included fieldwork with 17 students from the University of Artemisa (Cuba) and a case study of the Escuela Normal para Maestros de La Habana (1915-1959). The findings revealed a significant deficit in institutional historical knowledge among future teachers, with distorted periodization and absence of their own institutional references, although paradoxically more than 80% value knowing this history as very important. Documentary confrontation demonstrates that only the triangulation of sources and the adoption of social history, microhistory, school culture and gender perspective approaches allow restoring institutional complexity. Five transferable methodological principles are proposed: broadening the spectrum of sources, radical documentary critique, adoption of micro-scale without losing the macro perspective, incorporation of the subjective dimension, and decentering the narrative of great pedagogues.
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