Moral dilemmas in teaching recent history related to the violation of human rights in Chile

Abstract

This article reviews the moral dilemmas that a teacher faces in the classroom when teaching recent history which deals with military regimes, violation of human rights (1973–1990) and the transition to democracy in Chile (1990–2008). Furthermore, it explores the neutrality of the content taught; the ideological standpoints of the teachers and the students; emotions that emerge; relationships with the victims and so on. These tensions were noted during research undertaken in secondary schools in Santiago, Chile, in 2007. Introducing recent history into curriculum content is a way to teach citizenship education since it enables students to understand how historical processes occur and influence the present and permits understanding of the social context and everyday reality. However, when what is taught from recent history is an account of the violation of human rights, teaching becomes much more difficult and complex and several moral problems arise because of the proximity of the events, diverse interpretations of the facts and the different levels and ways of involvement of the teachers and students.

Notes

1. Law No. 18,962, simply known as Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Enseñanza (LOCE) [The Constitutional Organic Law of Education], published in the Diario Oficial, 10 March 1990, is the law that, by constitutional mandate, determines the minimum requirements that elementary and high school education have to fulfil, regulates the State’s duties for inspecting that these requirements are met and regulates the process of official recognition for all schools (Article 1).

2. Economic policy based on the premise that a country should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of industrialised products.

3. In Chile there are three types of schooling establishments: municipal, which are wholly financed by the state and come within the different municipalities; private, which are co‐funded by the state as well as by the parents of their students; and privately‐funded, which receive no state funding whatsoever and are completely funded by the parents of their students.

4. Seven years later, in 2007, the debate was revived. The proposal from the Ministry of Education to modify the curriculum was criticised in the mass media. The government was accused of delivering a biased version of history and incorporating recent history topics in the same curriculum.

5. The People’s Unity is the name of the conglomerate of left‐wing political parties that supported the government of Salvador Allende (1970–1973).

6. Both stadia were used as detention centres.

7. Among its members the Colegio de Profesores de Chile (the only teachers’ association in Chile), acknowledges that 94 of its members were victims and included amongst those who were forcefully disappeared and executed for political reasons.

8. This is a psychology thesis based on this investigation and supervised by the authors.