ARCHITECTURAL SPACE AND THE REGULATION OF CHILDREN'S BODIES: CLASSROOMS, LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract:

The decade of the nineties of the nineteenth century represented an important moment for education in Mexico, driven by a group of teachers, hygienists, doctors, architects and educators who proposed and promoted changes in primary education. One of these changes was in the area of school space, that is, in the construction of school buildings. The objective of this article is framed in a context of modernization promoted by the government of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911), and seeks to study the transformation that the school space underwent, focusing the analysis on the classrooms, a place where children spent an important part of their lives and where children's behavior was organized. The school building was conceived as a space of protection and formation for the child's body, which was accompanied by furniture, school materials and textbooks. The writing of this work is supported by sources from the Historical Archives of Mexico City, Public Instruction, School Plans; Newspaper Library of the National Pedagogical University, Mexico; Digital Newspaper Library (UNAM).

Key words:
Classrooms; Porfiriato; architectural space; children's bodies