The Malvinas War: experiencing and remembering the conflict in Argentine schools

In this article we offer a broad historical overview of how the "Malvinas cause" has been taught in Argentine schools over the years. It is divided into four parts: first, we focus on the period prior to the 1982 armed conflict in order to analyse how the issue had traditionally been conceptualised and thus, offer a reflection on the pre-existing ideological "terrain" which permeated the discursive reception of the war in schools. Second, we analyse how the war was experienced in the classroom through the analysis of correspondence between ministerial authorities and the schools, as well as through the analysis of oral testimonies by teachers and pupils. Third, we focus on what is called the process of "demalvinization" during the first decades of the return to democracy and the impact of this process on educational policies. Finally, we analyse the policies adopted by the Argentine Ministry of Education in the transmission of the Malvinas cause as an integral element within a contemporary politics of memory in the context of the 30th anniversary of the 1976 military coup; in particular, we focus on the place assigned to the 1982 Malvinas War in the educational resources produced at the time.