University extension, reformism and Peronism: meanings and practices at the National Workers’ University in Argentina (1948–1955)

Abstract

This article examines the redefinition of university extension during the first Peronist administration in Argentina (1946–1955), challenging historiographical interpretations that portray it as a marginal function in this period. Drawing on qualitative documentary research, the study analyzes laws, decrees, institutional resolutions, and official publications, with particular emphasis on the case of the National Workers’ University (Universidad Obrera Nacional, UON). The findings demonstrate that university extension did not disappear but was reoriented within a state-centered project aimed at articulating technical training, productive development, and doctrinal formation. Whereas the 1918 Reformist tradition conceived extension as a practice of cultural democratization grounded in university autonomy, Peronism integrated it into a framework of state planning and political-identity formation. At the UON, this transformation acquired a distinctive institutional form through the creation of the Institute of Cultural and Technical Extension, which complemented formal curricula with cultural and ideological training. The article argues that university extension provides a key analytical lens for understanding competing conceptions of the university’s social function in mid-twentieth-century Argentina.