This article revisits the history of modern schooling in Latin America, using concepts provided by poststructuralist theories on identity and its paradoxical constitution. Questioning the hypothesis that the expansion of schooling was a progressive, ascending movement, the article analizes how a peculiar discursive equivalence between equality and homogenization was constructed in the Latin American educational space, and how this equivalence froze difference as threat or defficiency. Using two examples (normalizing pedagogies and the wearing of uniforms in Argentinean schools), it discusses the effects of producing such identities, and posits the challenges faced towards a more democratic rearticulation of schooling.
POST-MODERN; IDENTITY; DEMOCRATIZATION OF EDUCATION; ARGENTINA