Paths, traditions, and tensions in the teaching of sociology at the Catholic University of Argentina (1959-1984)

Abstract

The work seeks to reconstruct the history of the Department of Sociology of the UCA from its founding to its reconfiguration, in the mid-1980s, seeking to identify the main themes and perspectives of sociological teaching and discussion. We work at three articulated analytical levels: curriculum, management and epistemology. Thus, a journey through the history of Argentine sociology is proposed based on the discussion of the role of Catholic intellectuals in the midst of social and political changes, the emergence and failure of developmentalism and the search for new social utopias with authoritarian content. In this sense, the work will seek to understand the attitude of Catholic sociology towards social change, which was expressed in the teaching of the discipline. At the same time, these contents will be useful to achieve a better understanding of the ways in which this intellectual tradition allowed access to knowledge of reality in sociological terms.

The text is structured in five parts. First, a discussion is presented about the assumptions of Catholic sociology, in relation to the character of the discipline itself and the tensions to define society, the state and social change. Second, the intellectual and institutional background of Catholic sociology in Argentina is identified and described. Third, the content of sociology teaching at the UCA is analyzed, in relation to the curricular project and the profile of its students and teachers. Fourth, the process of institutional change that occurred in 1966 is reconstructed, when teachers and students of the Department questioned a series of decisions due to the intervention of public universities. This then made possible a redefinition of the teaching program. Finally, in the conclusions some final reflections are rehearsed and future lines of inquiry are proposed.