The teaching of biological evolution in Mexican socialist textbooks in the 1930s

Erica Torrens Rojas,Ana Rosa Barahona Echeverría,Juan Manuel Rodríguez Caso

doi:10.3989/chdj.2021.022

Erica Torrens Rojas, Ana Rosa Barahona Echeverría + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2021.022

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Abstract

This manuscript presents the genesis and development of the so-called “Mexican socialist” school system of the 1930s, whose leading stakeholder was President Lázaro Cárdenas. At the beginning of the socialist project, Mexico underwent the most politicized and controversial education reform in its modern history. Much has been said about this ambitious project of social change. However, a thorough exam is still needed, especially on how socialist values were globalized and appropriated in the Mexican scenario regarding the new State project of basic education. In this sense we are interested in how science was portrayed in Natural Sciences textbooks, especially focusing in biological evolution.

Highlights

As a paragon of social transformation, a revolution may be without equal
In Mexico during the 1930s there was an unprecedented but short-lived change, which was the implementation of a socialist state policy.1. With this movement, interesting proposals arose in the field of education, of which we are interested in those related to life sciences teaching. Considering that at this time the subject of biological evolution was for the first time incorporated into the curricula of basic education as a means of promoting skepticism, we wonder how this subject was addressed if, on the one hand, there was a plurality of explanations of the evolutionary process (Darwin’s ideas, orthogenesis, Lamarck’s ideas and finalistic theories), and on the other, which of these explanations were considered adequate with the socialist proposal: those of Trofim Lysenko (Argueta et al, 2003), Leon Trotsky (Gall, 2012), Herbert Spencer (Ruiz et al, 2016), Charles Darwin (Ruiz, 1991; Barahona, 2009), Ernst Haeckel (Ruiz, 1991), among others?
It is not our intention to elaborate on the extensive bibliography on global history, and above all, how it has fundamentally affected the social history of socialism and the labour movement,2 we aim to show that the interconnection of socialist ideals originated theoretically in Europe, and related to the teaching of evolution in Mexico, were part of an appropriation and assimilation, allowing to place Mexican science education within a global context in which connected narratives describe the interplay between global trends and national contexts

Summary

Introduction

As a paragon of social transformation, a revolution may be without equal. To be sure, the Mexican revolution of 1910 brought about many significant ideological, political and social changes in Mexico. In Mexico during the 1930s there was an unprecedented but short-lived change, which was the implementation of a socialist state policy.1 With this movement, interesting proposals arose in the field of education, of which we are interested in those related to life sciences teaching. Considering that at this time the subject of biological evolution was for the first time incorporated into the curricula of basic education as a means of promoting skepticism, we wonder how this subject was addressed if, on the one hand, there was a plurality of explanations of the evolutionary process (Darwin’s ideas, orthogenesis, Lamarck’s ideas and finalistic theories), and on the other, which of these explanations were considered adequate with the socialist proposal: those of Trofim Lysenko (Argueta et al, 2003), Leon Trotsky (Gall, 2012), Herbert Spencer (Ruiz et al, 2016), Charles Darwin (Ruiz, 1991; Barahona, 2009), Ernst Haeckel (Ruiz, 1991), among others?

Objectives

Conclusion