History of education in Chihuahua: The Microhistory Seminar

Abstract

As part of the project of History of Education developed in the Doctorate in Education, Arts and Humanities of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, students of fourth semester take the course named Microhistory Seminar. Its purpose is to theoretically and methodologically strengthen their research work, which they develop at the crossroads of the curricula. This article presents the narrative and the experiences obtained in the development of the activities implemented in the seminar. It includes the selection of the scientific articles reviewed and as a text-pretext served to generate the discussion and other papers not considered in the program. The methodological approach was also considered, based on leadership shared with the participants, teachers and students, and always making sure to respect the ideas of others, with the principle of “whoever speaks more, makes more mistakes and whoever does not speak, never makes one”. The objective for that was to motivate participation and lose the fear of making mistakes. The epistemological support was made clear, it was to generate ideas coming from the readings, and to add the comprehensions and interpretations integrated by each one of the participants, in accordance with the usefulness of the knowledge they built. Also mentioned in the paper are the concerns about how the differences between the microhistory of the Mexican and the Italian side were approached, given the impossibility of describing the whole seminar.