Catholic teaching and the long transnational 1960s: Reclaiming the body, active pedagogies, and rebuilding selfhood

This panel includes four papers that focus on the various ways in which Catholic women and men religious interacted with the overlapping configurations of the long 1960s in the process of reconstructing their selves as teachers and their pedagogies. There were also cases, like the one studied by Patricia Quiroga in Spain, in which the public moved away from Catholic notions of education, but continued a search for spirituality. Geographically, the panel deals with three Spanish case studies, and one involving women congregations working in Canada and Spain. The panel involved scholars of the Theory and History of Education International Research Group (THEIRG, Queen’s University, Canada). In the first paper, Rosa Bruno-Jofre and Ana Jofre analyze archival photographs of three teaching congregations before and after Vatican II to track changes in gestures and clothing, drawing parallels to historical and personal transformations and their impact in the schools. The authors present their case using a multimedia interactive conceptual map  grounded on research done with archival documentation including visual data   extracted from archival photographs, and oral histories. In the second paper, Patricia Quiroga studies the conditions of possibility for the reception of Waldorf Schools in the second stage of Francoism within the context of post-Vatican II and a catholic system in the process of recreating itself. Waldorf schools are based on anthroposophy, an esoteric current created by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in 1913. It began to develop in Spain in the late sixties through semi-clandestine channels. Those interested in anthroposophy chose these channels because of the rejection and persecution that would have ensued by the strongly Catholic Franco authorities. Carlos Martinez examines the peculiar discursive intersections of active methods (including their reference to John Dewey’s ideas) and religious education (catechism) in Francoism, in spite of the condemnation of active methods by Catholic integrists. He reveals that while the Spanish academic establishment referenced authors from the progressive education tradition, grassroots catechists adopted and practiced active methods from the Church’s own tradition, such as the Life’s Review or the debate circles. Finally, Jon Igelmo analyzes the pedagogical arguments of the Spanish Jesuits who introduced active methods, including a new conceptualization of the body, in ecclesiastical higher education teaching in order to renew theological teaching programs. Organizer: Jon Igelmo Zaldivar (University of Deusto) Chair: Daniel Trohler (University of Luxembourg) Paper 1 Women religious teachers: facing the world on new terms during the long 1960s (1958-1974) into the 1980s. Rosa Bruno-Jofre (Queen’s University, Canada) and Ana Jofre (OCAD, Canada) This paper combines historical narrative with visual data extracted from historical photographs to explore the embodied, affective, and relational dimensions of selfhood in women religious teachers and their students, before and after Vatican II.  The paper focuses on the Canadian Missionary Oblate Sisters, the Spanish province of The Sisters of the Infant Jesus (French), and the Canadian province of Our Lady of the Mission/RNDM (French). We build a multimedia interactive conceptual map that provides an interpretation of the historical transformations the Sisters  underwent throughout the long 1960s and into the 1980s; and we use data visualization methods to present and connect ideas. We inquire into the congregations’ understanding of selfhood and its impact on the schools and pedagogy. The re-discovery of the self happens within the context of the crisis of Christendom in the long 1960s and the encounter with pluralism; it happens while the congregations relativized their own positioning after Vatican II. The process generated cognitive contamination in Peter Berger’s sense. Furthermore, they entered modernity at the time when liquid modernity, to use Zygmunt Bauman’s notion, had gained ground. Paper 2 The reception of Waldorf schools in a strong catholic context: Spain during the late- francoism in the sixties Patricia Quiroga Uceda (Waldorf teacher, Valladolid, Spain) In this paper I study the conditions of possibility for the reception of anthroposophy and Waldorf Schools in the second stage of Francoism. I take as a reference the context of post-Vatican II and a catholic system in the process of recreating itself. The period of time under study here is the fist phase of reception: 1967-1976. This phase places Sandra Aiste’s semi-clandestine yoga classes at center stage for receiving anthroposophy in Madrid in 1967. This group decided to create another group specialized in deeper theoretical work on applying anthroposophy to education in 1971. Nevertheless, during the Franco regime, the field of action available to this small group of partisans was restricted to the study of anthroposophy and Waldorf education, and no schools were founded. The research questions in this work are: How did Francoism and Catholicism influence the reception of anthroposophy and Waldorf education? What offered this esoteric current to the participants of this group in spite of Catholicism? How was Spain receiving and articulating Vatican II in the context of the counterculture and a strong process of secularism and if this had an impact in approaching new currents? Paper 3 Active Methods and Social Secularization in School Catechesis during the Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975): A Transfer in a Cultural System in Change Carlos Martinez Valle (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) During the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), Dewey, who was considered one of the most important theorists of ‘Active Methods’, was, after being forbidden, progressively often quoted in relation to teaching religion in Spain. The paper analyses the conditions of adoption of an educational ideology that was at odds with the Spanish (educational) culture resulting from the traditional prevalence of Catholicism. The traditional Catholic image of the human being and the related conception of education as a form of conversation produced a dereliction of didactics in Spain, in particular of active methods. Although the religious  academic establishment referenced authors from the progressive education tradition, grassroots catechists adopted and practiced active methods from the Church’s own tradition, such as the Life’s Review or the debate circles.  The paper also researches the intellectual construction of religion in a ‘secular age’, and contends that the adoption of foreign practices is a path dependent process that requires changes in social structures and key beliefs, as well as a transformation of previous practices. Paper 4 An active pedagogy to adequate theology teaching to “current methods”: the reform process of theology programs of the Jesuits in Spain (1961-1967) Jon Igelmo Zaldivar (Universidad de Deusto, Spain) On march 21 1961 father Pablo Dezza, during his visit to the Faculty of Theology located in Ona (Burgos, Spain) approved the beginning of the reform for the theology programs arguing that a new plan must “gain in activity for the students and interest for all”. Although this argument was based on the last edition of the Ratio Studiorum of 1954, the main context of this reform was Pope John XXIII’s announcement in January 1959 calling the Vatican II Council. In this paper I analyze the process of reform for theology studies carried out in Spain. I study the pedagogical arguments of the Spanish Jesuits who, in order to renew theological teaching programs, introduced active methods in ecclesiastical higher education teaching, which included a new conceptualization of the body. This line of pedagogical argumentation underwent different modifications from the first drafts designed in 1961 to the final version of the plan in 1967. I pay particular attention to the process of cognitive contamination -a concept already used in history of Catholic education by Rosa Bruno-Jofre and developed by Peter Berger in his book entitled The Many Altars of Modernity - that the Jesuits in charge of reform underwent, and the way in which they took as a reference the programs articulated in other universities from other European countries and the new social apostolate coming from central Europe after Second World War.

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