«History of Education & Children’s Literature», X, 1 (2015), pp.

583-600
ISSN 1971-1093 (print) / ISSN 1971-1131 (online)
© 2015 eum (Edizioni Università di Macerata, Italy)

Towards a new Chile through the heart:

aspects on the construction of a nationalist
emotionology in school textbooks during
Pinochet years (c.1974-c.1984)*

Pablo Toro Blanco

History Department, Universidad
Alberto Hurtado, Santiago (Chile)
ptoro@uahurtado.cl

ABSTRACT: Through the analysis of textbooks of history and social sciences and
complementary literature used in Chilean educational system during the period 1974-1984,
this article discusses a dimension not yet studied about the nationalist proposals promoted by
the military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet in Chile: the construction of a nationalist
emotional project or, in terms of Peter Stearns, an induced emotionology, among other
means, by rearticulating interpretations of the history of Chile and the imposition of a
nationalist matrix, an anti-Marxist and conservative Catholicism discourse regarding to
society and culture. Beyond iconographic analyses (Jara), conceptual approaches (Olivares)
or a focus on the censorship inflicted to textbooks (Ochoa), our article moves on a new
perspective on the problem of nationalism and patriotic loyalty, an object that has become
one of the first issues in the history of emotions, trying to provide a discussion focused not
merely on the official’s own discursive construction but rather analyzing how to access to
«structures of feeling» (Sobe).
EET-TEE KEYWORDS: History of Emotions; Textbooks; Nationalist Education;
History; Chile; XX Century.

* This article is an advance of two research projects on relationship among emotions,

educational system and youth in the period before the military uprising in 1973 (Research Project
Fondecyt n. 1140604, 2014-2017, and Universidad Alberto Hurtado Internal Research Fund
2014). I wish to thank Javiera Letelier Carvajal and Luis Felipe Caneo Meneses for their helpful
research assistance.
584 PABLO TORO BLANCO

1. Introduction: after the Coup

After the dramatic coup d’Etat that overthrew the Chilean socialist regime
led by Salvador Allende on September 11 1973, deep historical changes in
almost every area of the national reality occurred. An authoritarian civic-
military coalition, under the leadership of General Augusto Pinochet, seized
total power and a long dictatorship started. During the first years of civic-
military regime repression against any political opposition became a priority
in Pinochet’s political agenda. The darkest period of violation of human rights
happened during the first decade of Pinochet years, even though atrocities
and state terrorism persisted until the end of dictatorship in 19901. During
those first years, however, other main political and cultural transformations
happened. One of them was the increasing application of radical changes that
Chilean education would experience under a drastic turn that weakened the
historical notion of Teaching State, a guiding light of national education for
barely a century, and eventually led the system to a market-oriented education.
But educational changes were not only focused on administrative and
structural issues. Pinochet claimed, with his distinctive messianic temperament,
that rebuilding Chile was his historical mission, so education turned out to
be another battlefield: an arena in which, according to Manichaean military
doctrines, «National Soul» and Nationhood had to face challenges coming from
disruptive and evil forces led by international Marxism. In Pinochet’s words
«Marxism is not just a wrong doctrine, as there have been many in history. No.
Marxism is an intrinsically perverse ideology, which means that everything that
comes from it, even though its healthy appearances is riddled with poison that
corrodes its roots»2. Therefore, in order to avoid any possible expansion of
what General Gustavo Leigh (one of the leaders of the 1973 military uprising)
called «Marxist cancer» educational nationalism became a critical resource.
Educational nationalism in Chile has deep historical roots; however it has
been used with very different meanings according to diverse challenges. As
Patrick Barr-Melej has shown in a remarkable work, during the first half of
twentieth century a constellation of intellectuals, many of them sympathizers
of Radical Party and with a critic evaluation of decadent political system led by
oligarchy, envisioned education as a mean to nurture a «nationalist sensibility
that permeated the middle class’s milieu» and, afterwards, to «manipulate
the construction of a collective identity»3. Those operations, according to

1 Classic well informed overviews of Chilean dictatorship are in C. Huneeus, El regimen de

Pinochet, Santiago, Editorial Sudamericana, 2000 and P. Constable, A. Valenzuela, A Nation of

enemies: Chile under Pinochet, New York, Norton, 1993.
2 El General Pinochet habla al país: 11 de septiembre de 1976, Santiago, Impresora Filadelfia,

1976, p. 35.
3 P. Barr-Melej, Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Middle

Class, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2001, pp. 11-12.
ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 585

E.J. Hobsbawm, quoted by Barr-Melej, were components of an «ideological

engineering», representative of the building process of nationalism and
settlement of (using Benedict Anderson’s concept) an imagined community.
During 1930’s and 1940’s, under the political hegemony of the Popular
Front, a moderate leftist coalition led by Radical Party, educational nationalism
was installed as an ideological device intended to reinforce collaboration among
popular and middle classes, State and entrepreneurial organizations. Chilean
educational system promoted heroic images of military leaders of independence
wars. The most important was Bernardo O’Higgins, but educational reformers
emphasized his democratic attributes and his obedience to civil power rather
than his military skills4. This precedent is quite important for what is argued
in this article, since it is possible to note a clear pedagogical orientation in
civil nationalism during 1930’s and 1940’s pondering not only the cognitive
aspects as facilitators to achieve nationalization and social integration. As a
result of the increasing professionalization of pedagogy and local appropriation
of educational discourses transnationally circulating in previous years, this
nationalism took into account psychological (and, by extension, emotional)
aspects of children and young people, in a continuity of pedagogical efforts
made since the last decade of nineteenth century, a period in which adult interest
on child psychology, emotions and interests meant a starting point of a major
turn in relationships among teachers, students and other actors of school life in
Chilean education5. Accordingly to that conceptual heritage, civic nationalist
reformers tried to encourage active nationalism based on integration of
students with the community and spreading a comprehensive discourse rational
and sentimental as well, nestled under the guiding concept of Defence of the
Race, an idea of an epoch that witnessed a transitory supremacy of eugenic
discourses6. Iconography, school textbooks, massive patriotic parades, among
others resources, were displayed in order to promote a project that «sought to
democratize culture, spread nationalism in the public sphere, and, by extension,
realize a hegemonic project between revolution and reaction»7. Far away from
that civilian nationalism, new concepts of history, Nationhood, Chilean society
and the role of militaries in politics emerged during 1970’s, with a deep influence

4 P. Toro Blanco, Como se quiere a la madre o a la bandera: Notas sobre nacionalismo,

ciudadanía y civilidad en la educación chilena (1910-1945), in G. Cid, A. San Francisco (eds.),

Nacionalismos e identidad nacional en Chile. Siglo XX, 2 vols., Santiago, Ediciones Bicentenario,
2010, vol. I, pp. 154-155.
5 This turn is panoramically studied in P. Toro Blanco, Close to you: building tutorials

relationships at the Liceo in Chile in the long 19th century, «Jahrbuch für Historische
Bildungsforschung», Band 18, 2012, pp. 70-90.
6 P. Olivares, Concept de Nation et identité nationale au Chili: une approche a travers les

politiques éducatives et l’enseignement de l’histoire (XIX et XX siècles), Doctoral Thesis, École

Doctorale, Sciences de l’Homme et de la Societé (Director: Jean-Louis Guereña), Université
Francois Rabelais, Tours, 2004-2005, pp. 173-186.
7 Barr-Melej, Reforming Chile, cit., p. 227.
586 PABLO TORO BLANCO

of the Cold War ideological

climate.
A predictable outcome of bel-
ligerent anti-Marxist point of view
that civic-military regime expand-
ed was a deep reorientation about
the meaning of Chilean history.
Leaving behind multiple interpre-
tations supported by contempo-
rary social sciences, expressed in
school textbooks during 1960’s re-
formist period, a new conception
of historical process was built up-
on nationalist basis. Chilean his-
tory should be understood, from
them onwards, as an irreducible
antagonism between Good and
Evil. A few years after the military
uprising, an exiled critic remarked
that in Chilean education «histori-
cal reality is no longer opaque and
complex; is reduced to the clash
of two opposing wills contesting
the destruction or construction
8
Fig. 1. Yesterday and today. A comparison be- of national reality» . That radical
tween chaos and order, according to National Sec- opposition, according to the new
retary for Youth. (Source: revista «Juventud», n. 1, government, implied the existence
june 1977, p. 44). of two Chiles: the new one, born
from September 11, as a luminous
country «in Order and Peace», and the old and dark vanishing Chile. Educa-
tional authorities stated that «between March and September 1973, the school
calendar was accomplished in less than 30% of what was due. In short, the
climate that our country lived for some years was a chaos and in education that
chaos was permanent»9. The polarity between chaos (Popular Unity) and order
(civic-military regime) became a sort of mantra for new authorities.
In such a critical context, during 1970’s and first years of 1980’s,
nationalism in educational system became a standard that every actor in
school was supposed to fulfil by giving visible testimony of compromise with

J. Rodrigo, La educación como forma de violencia, in Chile bajo la Junta (Economía y

8

Sociedad en la Dictadura Militar Chilena, Madrid, Zero, 1976, p. 259.

9 Ministerio de Educación Pública, Desarrollo de la Educación Chilena desde 1973, Santiago,

1980, p. 2.
ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 587

Chilean beloved Motherland. A myriad of resources were displayed to inspire

students learning and even feeling the patriotic message that the authoritarian
civic-military regime unfolded. Curriculum was, of course, one of the most
relevant. Subjects with an ideological latent dangerous profile such as language,
literature, philosophy and social sciences were turned into (at least) neutral
learning environments or became fertile fields for sowing the seeds of military
regime’s propaganda. Textbooks followed the same path.
Regardless nationalist objectives about patriotic rites, conservative
interpretations of Chilean history and public cult to antique authoritarian leaders
like Diego Portales, the real impact of those quotidian educational activities
remains partially unknown. To what extent it was possible to penetrate the
minds and hearts of children and young students with nationalist message? This
is a permanent puzzle, because historians (as every social scientist) have a closer
contact to intentio auctoris, the sources and contents of educational messages,
more than what they really know about their actual impact on students. This
challenge is applicable to any kind of message, including school textbooks,
and is one of the capital problems that historians of emotion have to face. For
instance, during military dictatorship public ceremonies with students singing
the national anthem became much more frequent. A kind of national standard
would be accomplished with periodical hoisting of the national flag, according
to what authorities requested. In January 1975 educational authorities notified
schools directors about expected outcomes of Decree n. 29, a legal act that
ordered them to perform with all their school communities 32 civic rituals of
homage to the armed forces during the school year «for the enhancement of the
patriotic values»10. Nonetheless, patriotic feelings not always flourished in the
hearts of students: remembering his childhood during 1970’s, a talented historian
recalls «by then, barely ten years old, I already had a certain perception of the
political environment and the meaning of civic rituals and made a decision. I
decided to move my lips (as discipline required) and pretend to sing, without
actually doing so. Nobody would know but me»11.
Considering that changing historical context, in which education was
supposed to be one of the pillars for the New Chile that dictator Pinochet
envisioned, the aim of this article is to shed light on his civic-military regime’s
attempts to create a nationalist emotionology through school textbooks.
Regarding first political definitions of civic-military government that outlined
his regime as nationalist, it would have been expected the growth of a consistent
plan to promote education of that kind. Did really dictatorship led by Pinochet

10 Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Circular n. 850 sobre Decreto Supremo n. 29, January

27 1975. [It is surprising the denomination of the Ministry in this document, because its official
name in that year was Ministry of Public Education. Since the beginning of 1980´s the word Public
was deleted, in a very symptomatic action taken by civic-military regime].
11 J. Rojas Flores, Moral y prácticas cívicas en los niños chilenos, 1880-1950, Santiago,

Ariadna Ediciones, 2004, p. 7.

588 PABLO TORO BLANCO

changed school textbooks in a radical way? To what extent changes prevailed

over continuity in that area? Is it possible to identify something like a nationalist
emotionology during second half of 1970’s and the beginning of 1980’s?
In order to answer these questions I present a succinct theoretical
consideration on history of emotions and its possible relationship with school
textbooks, particularly regarding to key notion of emotionology. Afterward,
there is an analysis of a set of textbooks and educational regulations linked to
educational nationalism that Pinochet dictatorship allegedly tried to establish
during the first years of his regime.

2. School textbooks and history of emotions: some brief approaches

Noah Sobe has shown, in a well-informed appraisal of the current state

of the field, that historians of emotions are nowadays growingly exploring a
myriad of issues in the realm of history of education. According to him, recent
predominant topics have dealt with problems on habitus and regulation «seeing
the school both as a site where these emotional habits were produced and as a
site where they played out»12. That emphasis matches with the diagnostic that
German historian Ute Frevert uses to explain why history of emotions, as a
whole historiographical movement, is getting more and more attention. In her
words, its «surge is due to a veritable shift in systems of governance. As much as
these systems start to target the self and enhance the quest for self-optimization
and self-management, they have become aware of emotions as main motivators
and switch mechanisms of people’s actions and non-actions»13. Control,
discipline and regulation of behaviour are in the core of contemporary studies
on education, as can be seen in research conducted by numerous historians
that pay tribute to Michel Foucault’s interpretative frame. In a general view,
important movements of recent research on school textbooks share these
guidelines and thematic focus. Thus, there is a likely initial confluence between
history of emotions and history of school textbooks. As they share interests,
they experience together same theoretical and methodological obstacles as well.
For instance, both historians of textbooks as historians of emotions must face
the chasm between discourses and practices, models and reality. Quotidian
emotional experience or daily appropriation of curriculum and effective
learning of skills through texts usually keep less visible for historians, since
sources are generally richer in clues about the point of view of producers of

N. Sobe, Researching emotion and affect in the history of education, «History of Education:
12

Journal of the History of Education Society», vol. 41, n. 5, 2012, p. 690.

13 U. Frevert, The Modern History of Emotions: a Research Center in Berlin, «Cuadernos de

Historia Contemporánea», vol. 36, 2014, pp. 31-55, in partic. p. 32.

ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 589

speech (State, educational system, adults) rather than what receptors receive
actually (communities, students, children). Historians of emotions have taken
notice of this situation, as Peter Stearns points out, regarding to differences
between emotional standards and practices: «the actual experience may have
changed less, or at least differently, than the new standards imply. Historians of
emotion still try to deal with both aspects of their subject, but in distinguishing
between culture and experience they greatly improve their precision»14. In a
recent methodological overview, Susan Matt enriches that caution when she
asks «how did ordinary men and women received the art, the advice, the
novels? Did they see as reflective of their own emotions or widely divergent
from them?»15. In a similar way, it is possible to transfer these questions to the
field of school textbooks: how did children and young student received values
and messages from textbooks? Did they feel those values, such as patriotism,
fitting to expectations and willing of authorities?
The anecdote described paragraphs above, regarding the student who moved
his lips during patriotic ceremonies but refused to sing the national anthem,
summarizes quite well certain epistemological and methodological problems
that history of emotions has to deal with. It stimulates questions such as whether
it is possible to define emotions just by their external manifestations, and if
ritual forms (for instance, the civic ceremony that was not able to captivate the
rebellious student) could be considered as emotional performances, regardless
their actual impact on receivers. Or, in addition, a doubt comes out about how
to rescue the resistances and decode the silences of subjects, from a point of
view of the emotions, in a context of hierarchical relationships such as those
that exist in schools. Unread pages of school textbooks, unfilled quizzes or
questionnaires and unknown appropriation of their matters by readers pose
challenges that seem equivalent.
Another element that may be considered as common to the challenges of the
history of emotions and school texts is the problem of authority and power in
messages. As noted by John Issit, referring to the latter, «embedded in textbooks
therefore is a foundational epistemological assumption that they have a status,
a bona fide status with a potential for universal application»16. For that reason,
the texts would have an authority that would allow them to modify behaviour
of readers, both in cognitive as emotional realms. That supposed power,
nevertheless, is difficult to detect otherwise than knowing much more about

14 P. Stearns, History of emotions. Issues of change and impact, in M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland-

Jones, L. Feldman Barrett (eds.), Handbook of Emotions, New York, The Guildford Press, 2008,
p. 22.
15 S. Matt, Recovering the invisible. Methods for the historical study of the emotions, in S.

Matt, P. Stearns (eds.) Doing emotions history, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2014, pp. 41-
53, in partic. 49.
16 J. Issit, Reflections on the study of textbooks, «History of Education», vol. 33, n. 6, 2004,

pp. 683-696.
590 PABLO TORO BLANCO

actual practices of reading and having clear testimonies generated by recipients

of the texts. Hence, knowledge of communications and power circuits is not
easy to achieve. So, if a sharp analytical distinction between sender and receiver
in the fields of emotions or transmission of content or values through textbooks
is assumed as reasonable, we must recognize that there is a dark side of emotions
and reading actually lived in daily school life, an obscure realm that can not be
illuminated with usual sources (like regulations, educational plans, curricula,
school textbooks) that, nevertheless, allow a better understanding of the visible
side: the normative aspects.
The difficulty regarding effective impact of regulatory codes has been
recognized in the history of emotions as well. In 1985, Peter Stearns defined
emotionology as collective emotional standards promoted by social agencies
and institutions in order to foster or discard certain types of emotions, or to
consider them indifferently17. Even though its normative emphasis, however,
Stearns’ proposal recognized that the regulatory framework is not necessarily
the same that effectively existing emotion. In this sense, the main value of the
notion of emotionology lies rather in representing hegemonic social expectations
about behaviour. This is particularly important in cases such as institutionalized
fields like, for instance, the educational system. Therefore, the next section of
this article uses loosely the concept as a reference, with regard to the intentions
of the civic-military regime to promote nationalism ad hoc through education
and, in particular, school textbooks.

3. Elements of change and continuity in school textbooks during the first

decade of Pinochet era

As a contextual frame, it is important to take into account the interaction

that occurs in each specific case between new political guidelines (especially of
regimes arrived suddenly through coups) and textbooks editorial cultures. This
leads to moderating the forced and automatic association between dictatorships
and radical change of textbooks. A comparative historical perspective, such
as that offered by Matthias vom Hau in his research on the case of Mexico,
Peru and Argentina, helps to perceive that there were not always instantaneous
fundamental changes in this field. For example, it is possible to note that
Argentinian military regimes after the overthrow of Juan Domingo Perón in
1955 deleted any references to his Government in textbooks18. Something

P. Stearns, C. Stearns, Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional

17

Standards, «The American Historical Review», vol. 90, n. 4, 1985, pp. 813-836.
18 M. vom Hau, Textbooks, Teachers, and the Construction of Nationhood in Mexico,

Argentina, and Peru, «Latin American Research Review», vol. 44, n. 3, 2009, pp. 127-154.
ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 591

similar is seen in the Chilean case, because textbooks used during the
dictatorship of Pinochet stopped the contemporary history of Chile, without
solution of continuity, in 1952. Thus, the period of accelerated democratization,
social reforms, empowerment of leftist parties and popular mobilization since
then and until 1973 became a sort of ahistorical parenthesis that did not even
deserve to be mentioned. The Government emerged from the coup of 1973
was introduced, then, as a natural historic solution to chaos, a restoration of
an interrupted Chilean essence. In that interpretation, after closing the history
of Chile in 1952, a textbook affirmed: «the most important purpose of the
Government, as set out in the Declaration of principles of the Governing Board,
is to join the Chileans under the tenets of nationalism and Christianity»19. But
Argentinian and Chilean cases were not a necessary pattern. Other political
interruptions with military intervention, like Peruvian case during the 1970’s,
did not drive to deep changes in textbooks or to neglect a recent past.
The coup and the subsequent initiatives for its historical legitimation impacted
on the educational system with different depth and duration. On the one hand,
a set of actions was taken to control the teaching of subjects potentially critical,
as it was the case of philosophy, history and language. Major curricular cuts,
prohibition of certain texts, ideological control of the teaching were actions,
among others, which sought to purge the educational system, a task that
took place simultaneously with attempts to institute a nationalist education
proposal. This scheme, as far as this article concerns, involved the scope of
school textbooks because challenged them to fulfil duties such as strengthening
patriotism in students and inducing feelings in children in order to involve them
actively, especially during the first years of schooling, in the nationalist project
under construction.
To what extent is it possible to utter that a systematic and strategic plan
to carry out a nationalist proposal in Chilean education existed and that, at
last, it had influences specifically and significantly on school textbooks? It is
a legitimate question, at least for two reasons. The first is contextual and the
second is due to the nature of the industry of school textbooks in Chile. On
the initial, it is important to point out that the internal political dynamic of the
Pinochet regime was structured on the basis of two major programmatic trends:
a nationalist tendency and another with a clear neoliberal ideology, being the
latter which eventually led the strategic course of the dictatorial period as a
whole. Nationalist sectors had important role during the first years after the
Coup and tried to consolidate it, among other means, through education
and propaganda. Much of the nationalist doctrine alluded to convictions of
sentimental order and appealed to basic emotions as a source to characterize
Chile and «its vital reason. In this regard it should be noted the libertarian

19 S. Villalobos, Historia y Ciencias Sociales, 7º año Básico. Chile: su historia. La República

desde 1861, Santiago, Editorial Universitaria, 1978 [1st ed. 1976], p. 45.
592 PABLO TORO BLANCO

spirit, the rejection of dogma and the secret, the moral strength of physical
weakness, aggressive reaction to the attack and the solidarity feeling emerged
from difficult geography»20. Therefore, it was expected that this political sector
should promote the strengthening of patriotic values and images establishing an
intimate link between the history of the country and the militaries. As indicated
below, this had clear impact in the field of school textbooks.
On the second question (the effect of the nature of the publishing industry of
textbooks), radical changes that could be imagined as a result of such a dramatic
turn of Chilean political process, with quite an exceptional concentration of
power in the hands of the civic-military coalition, were attenuated by some
structural aspects of textbooks system. Jorge Ochoa (a pioneer in the field of
school texts in Chile) remarks that there were several elements, beyond the
ideological, that could affect changes in textbooks used in schools. Thus,
for example, it is necessary to take into account material factors: texts with
stronger visual impact required higher costs of printing, which threatened their
expansion through the entire school system. Or, on the other hand, it should
be remarked that production of texts in 1970’s dealt with logics not exclusively
domestic. There were large international consortia, like Santillana (from Spain),
that created manuals and texts with a certain degree of standardization. In this
sense, it is possible to think that many local editors would preferred to avoid a
too narrow ideological alignment with the nationalist ideas that flourished in
the first years of the military regime, to avoid publishing textbooks unable to
use existing documents, images and learning activities21.

4. Nationalist educational regulations and curricular transformations

Keeping in mind the two precedent factors, which influenced the viability
of nationalist education to become strategically hegemonic through textbooks,
among other means, it is worth now considering the specific framework in
which attempts to build a nationalist education in the first years of the military
regime were expressed. So it seems necessary to mention at least two facets that
were very visible and impacted quotidian life of schools: initiatives to promote
faithfulness to nationalism and patriotism, and, on the other hand, actions
carried out to redirect the contents of the teaching of history.
In relation to the first issue, the 1970’s were a fertile soil for official initiatives
promoting nationalistic and patriotic attitudes by different means and

H. Vergara Paredes, Destino nacionalista de Chile. Experiencia popular. Gobierno militar.

20

Futuro incógnito, Santiago, Imprenta Homero, 1976, p. 31.

21 J. Ochoa, Textos escolares: un saber recortado, Santiago, Centro de Investigaciones y

Desarrollo de la Educación, 1990, pp. 136-137.

ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 593

appealing to various senses. In relation to the eyesight, for example, it became

obligatory to put in every classroom portraits of the members of the Board of
Government, representing a sort of paternal guardianship over children and
young people. In addition, a range of generously illustrated brochures were
printed by the Government and distributed in schools as part of the purposes
of establishing an emotional closeness between students and members of the
Board. Particularly remarkable is one, broadly distributed in schools during
1974, which contained the biographies of the leaders of each branch of the
armed forces. An interesting gesture in the text, designed to develop proximity
with the students, was the empathic description of personal characteristics that
each one of the military leaders during their childhood years. In this tuning
effort, Augusto Pinochet was presented as «leader student and restless, with
great interest on math and history». Admiral Toribio Merino was described as a
sensitive boy that liked «breeding wild birds, painting, reading and doing much
sport» and General Gustavo Leigh was defined as «restless and idealistic, he
was a boy scout of the secondary school in which he made his studies»22. But it
was not the only sense that students should exercise to be closer to patriotism
championed by the authorities. With Decree No. 23, on September 18, 1979,
the military Government established that cueca would be, from then onwards,
the national dance of Chile and the Ministry of education should organize a
contest for primary and secondary students every year.
Together with the importance given to leaders of the armed forces, other
actions to strengthen patriotism were taken. Thus, for example, less than a
month after the military uprising (that authorities euphemistically called
pronouncement), in October 16, 1973, the Direction of Secondary Education
dispatched to schools a document with a singularly imperative tittle: Permanent
Ministerial Order n. 1. Two of the arguments of the Order shed light about
early official language on the issue of patriotism. The document declared «it is
not enough to feel the love of country but we need to externalize it, inter alia,
with a high respect for the authorities, institutions and national symbols». And
with that same tone of emotional appeal affirmed later «that is incompatible
with the true and well extended feeling of Chilean identity, any other feelings
that postpone or equal the love of country with feelings toward other Nations
or ideologies».
In 1974 the authorities of the Ministry of Education commanded directors
of high schools throughout the country to implement extraordinary activities
during two full weeks of the school year, coinciding with the celebration of
May 21, in honour of the maritime battle of Iquique happened in 1879, and
from 11 to 18 September, anniversaries of the military pronouncement and the
independence of Chile respectively. It is interesting to note that the objectives

22 Ministerio de Educación Pública. Departamento de Educación Extraescolar, Biografía de

los miembros de la Junta de Gobierno, Santiago, Editorial Nacional Gabriela Mistral, 1974, p. 5.
594 PABLO TORO BLANCO

of the second week of activities included, among other purposes, «to vitalize in
students one of the most remarkable feelings in man: the love of country […]
and to love the history and the cultural tradition that unites us»23.
Emotional invocations to students continued during the following years.
Secondary students were taken as relevant actors within the first massive
ceremonies that the civic-military regime carried out. As rightly noted Isabel
Jara, a Chilean historian who has studied these true civic liturgies with
emphasis in symbols and images, the attendance of young students as bearers
of the torch handed over to military to let them ignite the so called Kindle of
Eternal Freedom, in a ceremony held in 1975, is a symbolic milestone and
sought to generate an emotional sense of communion linking people to armed
forces24. Radio and TV also collaborated spreading this appeal to young
people, insistently broadcasting a propagandistic anthem with a chorus that
became a soundtrack of quotidian life under Pinochet years: «Chile eres tú.
Chile, bandera y Juventud» (Chile it is you. Chile, flag and Youth)25.
The second facet in the construction of a nationalistic education (curric-
ular control and changes to topics in teaching of history) had a less explicit
and proactive emotional profile. While it may be argued that there was a kind
of implied emotional disposition that legitimized the transformations in the
school curriculum, based on the already described chaos-order opposition, the
language tended to be less emotionally explicit and direct appeal to children
and young people was less important than in the recently analysed cases. Many
programs of study were purged of problematic issues (for instance, Founda-
tions of Sociology was eliminated as a unit of study) and a global orientation to
highlight heroic leaders were made, with the aim of connecting Chilean histori-
cal processes with elements of the individual character of these heroes: courage,
patriotism, calling for order, political realism. All these attributes were associat-
ed with, above all, military personages. The political result of such an approach
was obvious: the members of the Governing Board (and especially Augusto
Pinochet) should be seen as natural heirs and performers of such attributes.
The legitimizing function of history was more than evident26. That is expressed,
for example, in the emphasis given to social order and tradition, highlighted in

23 Ministerio de Educación Pública, Documento normativo de orientación general para la

segunda semana de actividades para-académicas. Año 1974 (11 al 17 de septiembre), Santiago,

August 6 1974.
24 I. Jara Hinojosa, Graficar una “segunda independencia”: el Régimen Militar chileno

y las ilustraciones de la Editorial Nacional Gabriela Mistral (1973-1976), «Historia», vol. 1,

n. 44, 2011, enero-junio 2011, pp. 131-163, <http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_
arttext&pid=S0717-71942011000100004> (accessed: December 22, 2014).
25 A version of this propaganda is still available online. See <https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=T0YTZtIZCt4> (accessed: December 22, 2014).

26 On this matter, a good overview is the research of C. Garrido, Las visiones nacionalista y

racista en los textos escolares de 7º y 8º Básico en Chile, Santiago, Editorial Magisterio Colegio
de Profesores, 2007.
ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 595

the historical narrative ac-

cording to official programs
of instruction in 1978.
Thus, for example, the
study of the independence
and political organization
of Chile was understood
as: «the prevalence of the
aristocracy. Its wealth and
social power. Cohesion and
class-consciousness. Con-
servative and Catholic spir-
it. Sobriety of manners».
The briefness of the rest of
Fig. 2. Introduction of armed forces in school textbooks.
this topic was a testimony
(Source: R. Garrido, R. Labbé, P. Rodríguez, M. Luengo,
of the interpretative empha- Material Didáctico de Historia de Chile. Primer Nivel, Santi-
sis: «the economic and so- ago, Ediciones Educativas, 1975, no page number).
cial role of other classes»27.
Control over subjects, priority given to some themes or the conservative
treatment of historical problems in the texts were elements, as noted, of an
emotional dimension quite less explicit than those special activities designed
to promote educational nationalism through an active commitment. Thus, for
instance, much of the narrative structure of the history textbooks validated,
in an elliptic way, order and conformity to ruling military authorities, without
employing direct invocations to the students. Analysing the colonial period,
for example, an author summarized some aspects of the social life of the
Chilean colonial period in the following words: «in the official and religious
manifestations, men showed their pain or joy, as it was the case. In the upper
classes there were frequent gatherings and domestic parties, of quiet and fine
tone […] the popular people overflowed joy in taverns and dance houses. There
they danced wildly, ate typical dishes and drank liquor and wine. Drunkenness
and crime prevailed in such places»28.
Interpretations in school textbooks of 1970’s and 1980’s were not limited
only to validate social order by using the past as a model of social peace and
naturalized differences among classes. There was also a transformation with
regard to the weight of protagonists of the national history, insofar as it was
reinforced the role that was attributed to the military. It is important, however,
to consider that Chilean school history always incorporated them among the

27 Ministerio de Educación Pública, Orientaciones para la aplicación en el año lectivo 1978

de los programas de Historia y Ciencias Sociales en la Educación Media Científico-Humanista,

Santiago, 1978, p. 69.
28 S. Villalobos, Historia y Ciencias Sociales, 6º año Básico. Chile: su historia. Desde la

Prehistoria hasta 1861, Santiago, Editorial Universitaria, 1978 [1st ed. 1976], pp. 41-42.
596 PABLO TORO BLANCO

most relevant historical agents. However, especially in texts intended for smaller
children, there was a clear interest in showing military forces as depositories of
most important values of the Nation and to put them into the imaginary of
children through different media. A graphic example can be seen in Picture nº
2, which presents a multiple-choice exercise and a reading and writing activity
with characters representing each branch of the Armed Forces.
The purpose of giving greater recognition to the armed forces led to naturalize
them through school textbooks. Thus, despite the fact that, according to
historical knowledge, it was difficult to sustain it, they were presented as if they
had always existed in national history: «The Armed Forces, through history, can
be characterized as part of the process; as they have contributed to enriching
our nation, ensuring their freedom and territorial integrity. It is well known the
role they played and their total devotion to the cause of Independence and later
in the Pacific War and all the crucial moments of our life as an independent
nation»29. This naturalization of historical actors, matching with the idea of
a qualitative deformation of contents, may be seen as one of many operations
for the deployment of a hidden curriculum, according to what poses Francisco
Cisterna, following the theoretical orientations of Michael Apple30.
In summary, both the school and extracurricular initiatives and curricular
changes were part of attempts to promote a nationalist interpretation of
the history of Chile. While an uncritical interpretation could hold that such
initiatives and changes were utilized with absolute advantage, given the
dictatorial context, it is difficult to measure accurately the levels of achievement
they had actually. As already noted, the gap between standards and practice
makes difficult to deduce how many acceptance official nationalism had in
the classroom. More complex is the situation when adding another element as
mediator between transmitter and receivers: the teachers. There is a ‘black box
situation’ that happens in every classroom, since teachers cannot be perceived
just as simple transmission devices of official curriculum. Certainly, the focus of
this article takes into account that limitation, even though they are out of the
scope of our sources.

29 R. Krebs, Historia, Geografía y Ciencias Sociales 8° año básico, Santiago, Editorial

Universitaria, 1983, p. 118.

30 F. Cisterna Cabrera, La enseñanza de la historia y curriculum oculto en la educación

chilena, «Docencia», n. 23, 2004, pp. 48-59, in partic. p. 54 (<http://www.revistadocencia.cl/

pdf/20100731195129.pdf>, accessed: December 22, 2014).
ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 597

5. Glimpses on emotions in school textbooks and teaching orientations.

Emotional invocations in textbooks are not an anomaly. In fact, depending

on the age of children and young students, a multiplicity of forms to express
affects and feelings are used. This section presents selected evidence on some
emotional appeals in school textbooks during 1970’s and first years of 1980’s.
A introductory statement about the limits of this exercise is required: given that
attention is granted to terms denoting emotions that appear linked to a modified
historical narrative with deeper emphasis in national identity, it is complex to
discern how much of the frequency of these allusions is actually a circumstantial
product and how much is due to long-term temperaments or standardized
versions of so-called Chilean character. This is a problem which lies at the core
of difficulties that history of emotions faces, since one of the big dilemmas is
whether emotions are basically a set of finite forms of the human condition
that are present at all times under similar forms (a universalist perspective
held, among others, by Paul Ekman) or if they are cultural constructions and,
therefore, may have special features according to time and place. In this second
thesis (a constructionist point of view) historical change is, undoubtedly, a more
relevant factor. This dilemma can be applied to the topic studied here, as soon
as it is possible selecting an approach that emphasizes structural attributes of
long duration or choosing an analytical lens with attention to possible changes
in less extensive cycles. In short, what is in dispute is whether the weight of a
permanent emotional essence is heavier or, on the contrary, if it is possible to
appreciate changes and changing emphasis, which would mean granting agency
over emotions to policies: in other words, it means to hold that it is possible to
study emotionologies in short time cycles. Keeping this in mind, some examples
on emotions in an authoritarian context are analysed in next paragraphs, with
reference to the Chilean identity as a problem with deep historical roots.
Pamela Olivares, researcher on the concepts of nation and national identity
in educational policies and history textbooks in Chile, remarks that in school
textbooks during 1980’s unity in front of danger is frequently highlighted as
an element of long-term historical being of Chileans31. Therefore, according
to our analytical proposal, it can be seen that students are managed, through
textbooks, to an emotional disposition that combines fear and confidence.
Military episodes concerning to conflicts with Chile’s neighbours appear in
textbooks as a fertile ground to detect the induction to these two emotions in
students. On the one hand, there is an emphasis on the uniqueness of Chile
and its differences with a regional hostile regional scenario and, on the other
hand, great importance is given to some sort of superiority, a feature based on
a national identity that is, allegedly, a trans historical consequence of facing
challenges and dangers with courage. An example, regarding the first decades

31 Olivares, Concept de Nation, cit., p. 212.

598 PABLO TORO BLANCO

of national organization, is the allusion to Chilean triumph over Peru-Bolivian

Confederation (1837-1839): «The victory of [Chilean army in a decisive battle
in] Yungay instilled great optimism in Chilean; men of this land had proved their
physical and spiritual strength, had beaten a clearly superior enemy fighting
on their own ground»32. A spiritual appellation, balancing fear to the other
and a sense of superiority, became abundant in school texts during 1970’s and
beginning of 1980’s. It is evident that the coincidence of a state of siege, a time
of restriction to individual and collective freedoms under the reason of national
security and unity, made this appeal much more meaningful for students.
National Unity against current enemies that dictatorship detected (border
countries or the ghost of international communism) should be strengthened
by every available mean. Accordingly, schools were meant to be a place to
carry on efforts to galvanize nationalist feelings because «every child, Young
boy and adult must acquire, enhance and defend ideas, feelings and objects
that contribute to become a more caring person to his fellow, self-realized and
especially persevering with their status as human being and Chilean»33. In this
sense, the past was clearly interpreted according to current national challenges.
In a text for seventh grade students (twelve years old) two concepts were
highlighted graphically in capital letters: «the nation emerged strengthened
from conflict. It defeated two countries that together were much more
powerful; PATRIOTIC SENTIMENT was increased and it was left a feeling of
very confidence in our NATIONAL DESTINY»34. Emotional appeal recalling
historical past was linked to a shared collective purpose, matching with one of
the columns of authoritarian discourse: the idea of a predestined and eternal
Chilean national soul.
In order to reinforce the idea of national unity, not only relying on a partial
reading of the historical facts and stressing the role of armed forces, actions were
made to strengthen mechanisms and symbols of authority. It is evident in the
words of Pinochet warning to teachers that «integral restoration of the principle
of authority, so broken in recent times, must rest on the moral ascendancy of
superior […] to understand the importance and nobility of the authority the
youth must see their masters as worthy admiration and respect testimonies»35.
In addition, official orientations about history teaching encouraged these
hierarchical values claiming that teachers should always induce their students
to cultivate «special development to rules of coexistence, that turns into respect,

N. Duchens, B. Schmidt, Historia y Geografía 7° básico, Santiago, Editorial Santillana,

32

1983, p. 140.
33 C. Díaz, L. Domínguez. Historia y Geografía 8° básico, Santiago, Editorial Arrayán, 1988, p. 10.
34 R. Krebs, Historia y Geografía 7° Básico, Santiago, Editorial Universitaria, 1983, p. 100.
35 A. Pinochet, Mensaje del excelentísimo Señor Presidente de la Junta de Gobierno a los

educadores de Chile, «Revista de Educación», n. 47, 1974, pp. 2-3, in partic. p. 3.

ASPECTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATIONALIST EMOTIONOLOGY IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS IN CHILE DURING PINOCHET YEARS 599

tolerance, cooperation, respect for others opinion, responsibility and respect to

the legitimately instituted authorities»36.
Emotional appeals in teaching guidelines that educators received to teach
patriotic values reveal that certain attributes, which could be interpreted as
pedagogically progressives (e.g., an active didactic which emphasized not only
intellectual realm), could have an application quite politically conservative. As
this official orientation shows:

This Unit [about national hero Bernardo O’Higgins] has been developed in line with the
Confluent Education, which cultivates simultaneously intellectual, emotional and corporal
mastery […] it has been designed minding the current education policy, which basically
proposes the Unity as a basic parameter of national knowledge of the patriotic values and
the common heritage of all Chileans as well. […] This Unit also proposes that objective and
reveals that practical concern must be expressed not only in intentions, but in direct and
emotional way, so that each student knows and ‘feels’ the values that you delivery to him or
her and you do your part now and here37.

Recognition of emotive aspects in school textbooks and official teaching

orientations supplements an ingredient to traditional analysis strictly focused
on aspects of content. One way or another, it leads to a still unknown realm,
because introduces the question of how to reach intimate spaces of conviction
to achieve purposes such as which envisioned a teacher with her students in
1979. She wanted to make them «understand the influence of affection in the
appreciation of our environment; understand the meaning of the temple of mind
in assessing subjective world by the artist; identify the temple of mood in the
national anthems; discover patriotic duties that each one feels like of his or her
own developing a sense of commitment to the historical destination of Chile»38.

6. Final reflections

One of the more fruitful lines of study within the field of the history of emotions
focuses on the interface between emotional factors and pursuit of political goals,
through forms of influence and mobilization of broad spectrum, which include
the school system. If theories of nationalism identify, in general, the emotional
facet as a main element for building ties of belonging to imagined communities,
it is understood that those who seek to establish specific interpretations of

36 Sugerencias y modificación en relación con los contenidos de Ciencias Sociales de los programas
de Primer Ciclo Básico, «Revista de Educación», n. 49-50-51, 1974, pp. 23-25, in partic. p. 23.
37 H. Vásquez, M.I. Frei, P. Varas, O’Higgins y yo, «Revista de Educación», n. 72, May-June

1979, pp. 6-13, in partic. p. 7.

38 J. Guerra, Sintiendo a Chile a través del Himno Nacional, «Revista de Educación», n. 73,

July-August 1979, pp. 5-9, in partic. p. 7.

600 PABLO TORO BLANCO

nationalism (like, for example, Chilean armed forces with their inspiration
in National Security Doctrine) should consider school textbooks as means to
promote it in the mind and especially the heart of children and young people.
Less conceptual and abstract appeals, and on the other hand, more sentimental
and embodied in heroic characters allowed spreading suffering and distances,
hope and fear, allegedly. Accordingly, this text has tried to explore, briefly, how
the civic-military regime led by Augusto Pinochet proposed promoting its own
version of nationalism and which was the emotional emphasis used to do this.
As it has been noticed in recent studies on the relationship between emotion
and power, its complexity should be understood, since power involves both
emotional and discursive realms. To enrich the study of political phenomena as
nationalism, according to the proposal of Nicole Eustace (in her case, studying
the emergence of American nationalism in the context of political modernity),
it is necessary to consider the installation of a rational public sphere, which
refers to the concepts of Habermas, and emotional appeals to the community,
involving contributions of Benedict Anderson39. Although the phenomenon
that has been analysed in these pages differs in time and space, the core of the
invocation of Eustace is quite pertinent: understanding a political process (in
this case, the attempt to build a nationalist regime) should mean an analytical
exercise on mechanisms of conviction (from habermasian rational debate) as
emotional persuasion but without underestimate any of these two realms.
Keeping in mind the unavoidable interaction of ideology and practice and,
on the other hand, the problematic relationship between change and continuity
that is characteristic of school textbooks, it is possible to appreciate that text,
images, music, school events, formed part of a specific effort to represent to
the students a sense of national identity that appealed to them not only from
intellectual domain but from affections. National Unity and Destiny; induced
feelings like fear or confidence derived from collective historical experience;
respect and inhibition in front of authorities: all these elements were displayed as
components of a nationalist emotionology in which, at last, reactive dimensions
(fear, obedience) prevailed. Other historical factors, like internal conflicts during
civic-military regime that diminished the political strength of nationalist alliances
for the benefit of neoliberal groups, help to understand that a likely nationalist
emotionology did not have continuity in time and a greater stability.
Finally, regardless of a more reflexive approach, concerning affective
dimensions of official messages through educational system, the dark side of
the emotional puzzle still keeps hidden. Complementary methodologies and
sources are needed to enrich our knowledge and reach, as possible, the actual
impact that nationalist appeals had in the hearts of Chilean boys and girls
during the first years of Pinochet dictatorship.

39 N. Eustace, Emotions and political change, in Matt, Stearns (eds.), Doing emotions history,

cit., pp. 163-183, in partic. p. 174.