A Thesis's story. How Argentina's First PhD in Education Was Cooked

Abstract

This article reconstructs the development and historical context of the first PhD thesis in Educational Sciences defended at the National University of La Plata in 1930 by Celia Ortiz de Montoya. Through historical and documentary analysis, the UNLP is portrayed as a space for the circulation, experimentation, and confrontation of pedagogical ideas, particularly those linked to the New Education movement. Montoya’s thesis, titled Needs for the Reform of National Education, is examined as a product of this plural, dynamic, and contentious intellectual climate. Her educational proposal-structured in three interrelated cycles, with a strong philosophical, child-centered, and culturalist orientation-reflects influences from both European and Latin American authors. The study reveals how the thesis synthesized key debates between scientism, spiritualism, and critical idealism, while proposing a comprehensive reform grounded in active, situated, and emancipatory learning. Montoya’s role as a cultural broker in the reception and dissemination of international pedagogical ideas is also highlighted, along with her later academic work at the National University of the Littoral. The metaphor of the intellectual kitchen is used to represent the UNLP as a fertile space for the blending and crafting of educational knowledge, in dialogue with Argentina’s political and cultural history.