1 Introduction

In Latin American countries¹, the panorama of the academic offer of undergraduate courses for educational studies that are not exclusively in the field of teaching is quite heterogeneous. Among the countries in which there is a course with the proper name of Pedagogy², only in Brazil the training of teachers for Early Childhood Education and Early Years of Elementary School is its central purpose. A comparative-reflective look at the approximations and distances between these countries in the institutionalization of Pedagogy as a theoretical and formative field becomes important for providing references on how, in each context, the specific domain of Pedagogy as a field of production of specialized knowledge about the educational phenomenon has been delineated.

Especially in the Brazilian case, this problem reveals an important way as a reason for discussion around the curricular configurations that characterize the initial training of pedagogues and their attempts to (re)exist academically since the institutionalization of the Pedagogy underdegree course in the country, in 1939. In other words, the reflection about the Pedagogy as science in the Pedagogy underdegree course gives space for a discussion of its identity disposition at a time when the course is going through another wave of reformulations due to the approval of Resolution 02/2019 (BRASIL, 2019) by the Council National of Education, which establishes guidelines for the initial and continuing training of Basic Education teachers.

Noting the invisibility of Pedagogy in the course itself, Silva Júnior emphasizes that “as we all know, the Pedagogy course does not usually look at itself, which explains the fact that it has not yet realized that Pedagogy as an academic discipline never had a reserved space in its interior” (2019, p. 6). Supported by recent studies and research, Pimenta, Pinto and Severo argue that “[...] the Pedagogy course studies itself as a discipline, a structuring and integrating disciplinary knowledge of the entire pedagogical project of the course [...]” (2020, p. 10).

Under the pressuposition that the disciplinary dimension of the pedagogical field demands to be academically assumed with greater vigor and epistemological rigor, this paper discusses the disciplinary condition of Pedagogy in the Brazilian, Argentine, Mexican and Colombian academics contexts, and examines formative configurations of Pedagogy and Education Sciences offered by the two largest universities in each of these contexts. These are countries that have underdegree courses with similar training purposes.

We clarified that disciplinary condition refers to the degree of systematization and organicity of knowledge intrinsic to Pedagogy in the definition of its academic space. Therefore, it is linked to the epistemological statute that refers to it as its own field of knowledge. The concept should not be taken as a synonym for discipline or “subject”, in the sense of a curricular component, although Pedagogy may come to constitute itself as such in a particular curriculum. The disciplinary condition is, therefore, prior to the delimitation of Pedagogy as a curricular component, either as a discipline or as any other device for organizing the curriculum.

2 Method

The undertaking of a comparative analysis of the formative configurations is useful to draw a panorama of convergences and disparities of the Brazilian tradition of curricular organization of the Pedagogy underdegree course in relation to territories with which it remains geopolitically close, but, from the point of view of academic dialogues, still poorly articulated. Theoretical-documentary researches are important tools for updating the referents that identify a field of knowledge, as they allow the repositioning of its conceptual and methodological bases, and the emergence of questions that shed light on themes and dimensions that need to be better explored and understood (^{FLICK, 2009}).

According to guidelines by ^{Adamson and Morris (2015}), the approach of a comparative study of training/curricular documents presupposes the existence of elements susceptible to the logic of correlations. Therefore, the procedure required that the analytical axes was established: a) purposes and objectives of the courses; b) curricular organization; c) subjects that addressed the specificity of the disciplinary field of Pedagogy.

Possessing a theoretical-documentary methodological character, the research was guided by the search procedure for formative programs on university websites in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, integrating data from seven courses offered by institutions with quantitative expression or that have been the locus of historical emergence of the course. The universities included in the research were: Universidad Pedagógica Nacional and Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia); Universidad Autónoma de México and Universidad Veracruzana (Mexico); Universidad Naiconal de La Plata, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Only in the Argentine context was it necessary to include a third course in addition to the two largest universities in the country, due to the fact that the institution in which it is located was the founding locus of the first undergraduate course in Educational Sciences. The analysis of the Brazilian context was carried out by examining the disciplinary condition of Pedagogy in the homonymous underdegree course from theoretical sources that problematize the identity of the course and notes around the current National Curricular Guidelines (BRASIL, 2006) and Resolution 02/2019 (BRAZIL, 2019).

3 Pedagogy in Colombia

As a diagnostic feature of the disciplinary condition of ^{Pedagogy in Colombia, Peña, García, Gaviria and Cruz (2018}) point out that conceptual misconceptions persist around what constitutes pedagogical knowledge fueled by different factors: the profusion of adjectives to qualify Pedagogy without a substantial examination of pedagogical theory; the restrictions of meaning for the pedagogical reflected by the market ideology; the low prestige that marks pedagogical training as an object of public policies, etc. This complex set of factors inspires the need for, in that country, to establish and expand the discussion on Pedagogy and on the conceptual movements that (re)create the field of knowledge production on educational processes, even because, according to the authors, “[...] an adamic attitude reigns in Colombia, because everything that is planted to speak about pedagogy and education imagines inaugurating a field and pronouncing its first word” (^{PEÑA; GARCIA; GAVIRIA; CRUZ, 2018}).

As in the Brazilian case, the discourses on Pedagogy are installed in Colombia due to the creation of normal schools for teacher training, with a preponderance of the francophone tradition of Empirical-Experimental Pedagogy linked to the New Education ideals. Until the mid-20th century, two aspects marked Colombian pedagogical thinking: emphasis on the methodological dimension of Pedagogy and belief in progress as an educational purpose.

Such aspects reflect the way in which the New Education principles were received and reproduced in the country.

In this way, and not very different from the social and political context in which the Pioneers of New Education acted in Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s, the pedagogical references marked by hybridism are built and disseminated, establishing the sense of Pedagogy as a knowledge oriented towards the standardization of teaching. Thus, an academic representation is consolidated in which Pedagogy appears as an organizing methodological sense of teaching, confusing itself with Didactic.

Along the decades that followed, this academic representation was radicalized by the restriction of Pedagogy to the sphere of techniques and, therefore, gave it an instrumental character in line with the transformations caused by the performance of international organizations in public policies. As a reflection of such instrumental radicalization, between the 1970s and 1980s Colombia experiences a set of educational policies that reorganize schools and affect teaching work, emphasizing the technical dimension of teaching within a perspective that became known as Educational Technology and Instructional Design Model (ETID Model).

According to Giraldo and Eslava, the adoption of the ETID Model for curricular reforms in basic education “made that union directors saw the need to deepen on education and pedagogy to guide a collective response to the reform” (1999, p. 199). In opposition to the action of the State, collectives of educators establish, in different parts of the country, the Colombian Pedagogical Movement (CPM) guiding it by the purpose of politicizing the interference of imperialist technicism in the educational field and defending the teacher's identity in a popular and emancipatory perspective of education, as well as triggering guidelines associated with professional and salary recognition.

The issue of Pedagogy gains centrality in the CPM due to the understanding of its condition as a field of knowledge that identifies the work of teachers. In other words, an understanding was built that insisted on the “recovery of pedagogy as the teacher's knowledge” (VALENCIA, 2006, p. 104).

Regarding academic studies on Pedagogy, Valencia (2006) and Palencia Et Al (2017) report that two research groups impacted the view of Pedagogy and guided reflections developed in the CPM, namely: the group “History of pedagogical practice in Colombia”, coordinated by professor Olga Lucía Luzuaga at the Universidad de Antioquia; the research group on the “Science Teaching”, coordinated by professor Carlo Federicci, at the National University. To these two, Peña, García, Gaviria and Cruz (2018) add the works of Rafael Flórez Ochoa, also from the Universidad de Antioquia.

The teacher trainning for Basic Education in Colombia is the assignment of specific degrees for the stages that constitute this level of education. The degrees seek to incorporate into the curriculum design the specificities that characterize the teaching-learning processes that correspond of teaching stages/areas, based on the regulatory documents of curriculum policies. The formulation and implementation of these policies do not take place outside the influence of international organizations that translate, at local levels, a global logic of capitalization of learning according to neoliberal interests. Following the trend of the Latin American region, the regulation of teacher training in Colombia began to rely on more specific provisions throughout the 1990s, especially with the enactment of the General Education Law in 1994, which established regulations for the accreditation of universities and restructuring of normal schools. Currently, initial training can take place at university institutions or higher normal schools in courses called “licensure”.

Distinguishing themselves from licensure courses aimed at training teachers, Pedagogy programs operate in the specific perspective of pedagogue trainning, configuring, in comparison with the format of higher education courses in Brazil, as a bachelor's degree. The offer of Pedagogy programs is recent in Colombia and currently has 02 courses throughout the country; one offered by the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN), created in 2019, and the other at the University of Antioquia (UdeA), created in 2015. Both stand out as the oldest and two of the best-rated higher education institutions in the country.

The study plans for the courses at both universities are not available on the institutional website; what is available is information about training objectives, curricular organization and field of action of the professional. By consulting the websites, was possible to infer that the Pedagogy Programs conceive the pedagogue as a professional with a wide range of insertion, whose abilities are rooted in a scientific and contextualized reading of the educational phenomenon in different spaces. On the UPN website the professional profile is outlined in order to attend the following work areas: public and private primary and secondary education institutions; universities, higher education institutions and normal schools; public entities and other governmental organisms; entities, foundations, companies, centers, institutions and non-governmental organizations. In these areas, the pedagogue is assigned by the functions of advisory, research, planning, mediation, evaluation and dissemination of educational processes.

Similarly, UdeA also mentions the possibility of other emerging fields of professional activity in which the mobilization of pedagogical knowledge is necessary to solve social problems, such as museology, environmental education, educommunication, higher education, education in digital environments, pedagogy of the community work.

The concept of Pedagogy assumed in the UdeA course is presented when it is proposed, as training objectives, that pedagogues “design, manage, assess, develop and evaluate proposals, programs and formative and educational projects, which are sustained by the Critical Tradiction of Pedagogy [...] (UdeA, 2022, s/p).

In the proposal presented on the institutional website, the UPN course is linked to the formative concept that “understands the training spaces in which the philosophical, conceptual and practical foundations of Pedagogy are offered, as well as how their historicity is recognized and critically appropriated the traditions and knowledge that conform” (UPN, 2 022, s/p).

At UPN, the Pedagogy Program lasts for 8 semesters, while at UdeA the course is divided into 10 semesters. It seems interesting to point out that the curricular designs of both courses are permeated by lines of investigation that bring the student to issues that are more closely related to the production of pedagogical theory, through research activities under the guidance of professors at the institution.

The professional profiles, fields of activity and investigative lines denote a comprehensive understanding of the thematic scope that makes up Pedagogy as a complex and plural field. This same character is reflected in the combination of curricular components throughout the training semesters/stages. Among a diversified offer, the following components of studies on Pedagogy were found in the two courses: Traditions of Pedagogy; Research in Education and Pedagogy; Pedagogical Approaches and Models, at the UPN; Seminar on Classical Pedagogy; Seminar on Contemporary Pedagogy; Traditions and paradigms in Pedagogy; Epistemology of Pedagogy and Education Sciences, at UdeA.

After consulting the website and trying to contact the institutions, it was possible to access only the menu of the discipline “Traditions of Pedagogy”, which has as its central axis:

Characteristics of the discursive production of Pedagogy that, based on the notion of pedagogical tradition, allow the identification of central concepts, developments from different cultural environments and the grammar proper to the field (UPN, 2022).

Despite having a Pedagogy course for a short time and this course being offered by only two institutions in the country, Colombia has an important historical, theoretical and political access to the debate on Pedagogy through the COM. Academics and educators from other non-university spheres were involved in the task of systematizing a theory for Pedagogy and for pedagogical knowledge that would strengthen a reactive posture to the educational reforms installed since the 1980s. Not Always theorizations of Pedagogy took place under the pressuposition that it constituted itself as a science, although the tendency is to conceive it as a specific field of knowledge. Currently, there is greater evidence in post-critical readings on Pedagogy as a knowledge produced in discursive fields.

4 Pedagogy in Argentina

In Argentina, the course that incorporates training purposes equivalent to the Pedagogy course in Brazil is named Licensure in Sciences of Education. Since 2007, Pedagogy has been a required curricular component of the Science of Education courses (bachelor and professorship), constituting subjects and specific integrative areas in the curriculum, because the approval of the National Curricular Guidelines to Initial Teacher Trainning (ARGENTINA, 2007). The training of teachers for the initial stages of Basic Education takes place in Professorship courses, offered by Teacher Trainning Institutes, preceded by the Normal Schools, which were instituted at the end of the 19th century.

The institutionalization of “education degrees” experiences different historical processes relating to the training of professionals in courses that are not intended for teaching in the initial stages of Basic Education, although they carry, in the title, the name of Professorship and Licensure. In 1914, at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, the Sciences of Education course was offered in the pedagogical section of the Faculty of Law. The Universidad Nacional de La Plata is also the first Argentine university to train doctors in Educational Sciences in 1926 (^{DE LA FARE, 2008}). Since then, similar courses have spread across Argentina. Although it is not an official title, over time, graduates of Sciences of Education were commonly designated as pedagogues, a remnant of professional representation derived from the previous denominations that the course had (Philosophy and Pedagogy, in the 1930s; Pedagogy course, in the 1950s; Psychology and Educational Sciences course, in the 1960s and 1970s). Regarding this “heritage”, Abrate questions whether “[…] this word 'pedagogue' reflects the initial structure of the field of Sciences of Education in which the Pedagogía occupied its centrality” (2017, p. 04).

More broadly, the transition of denominations evidences significant ruptures in the way in which relationships of belonging were constituted between Pedagogy and Sciences of Education. In the French tradition - which is reflected in Argentina - Pedagogy would be closer to Philosophy, nourishing itself from a humanist-speculative logic. From the 1950s onwards, Behavioral Psychology began to appear as a reference base for educational studies and policies, opening space for the repositioning of Pedagogy in the academic space, making it a topic or concern of interest to Sciences of Education. In other words, the regulation of educational practices must be based not on abstract or speculative principles that make up systems of pedagogical thinking, but on the scientific prescription obtained by experimental research (SOUTHWELL, 2014).

On the other hand, this transition aroused positive expectations around the training of education professionals, as presented by ^{Nassif (1961}), for who the Science of Education courses created from the 1950s would fertilize a synthetic character in Pedagogy, revitalizing it through a movement between the sciences, so that it was possible to

[ ...] to recover what has been durable left by the brilliant generation of positivists - the return to the concrete, to the investigation and the direct experiences - as well as what definitively taught the antipositivism - the integration of the pedagogical findings into a broad and coherent theory (^{NASSIF, 1961}, p. 3).

Between 1980 and 1990, the professional field of Sciences of Education incorporated new spaces and emerging professionals actions, such as educational advice to Higher Education Institutions and practices developed in organizational environments (VICENTE, 2 016). In general, the Sciences of Education courses aim to train professionals who will work in teaching at high school (professional training) and higher levels (in areas that incorporate educational knowledge), in processes of planning, development and evaluation of educational policies, in educational management, in the production and dissemination of educational knowledge, and in a broad spectrum of training interventions within the framework of school and non-school education.

In order to trace a movement of reflective approximation about training in Pedagogy in Argentina, some characteristics of the study plan of the Degree in Sciences of Education in the three largest public higher education institutions will be highlighted: the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) , located in the city of Buenos Aires; the National University of La Plata (UNLP), located in the city of La Plata; and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), in Córdoba.

Within the scope of UBA, the Sciences of Education course (licensure) is regulated by Resolution n. 6198 of 2016 of the Higher Council of the University, being offered in presential model, with a duration of 6 years and a workload of 3,488 hours. The document reflects the concern with the recognition of the specificity of Pedagogy, assuming as a guiding perspective of the course “the recover of Pedagogy as a specific disciplinary field” (UBA, 2016, p. 02).

With a broad training scope aimed at multipurpose professional action in different spaces, the course is organized into three cycles: common basics, general training and guided training. In the common basic cycle are four-monthly components offered for all courses at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, with the aim of equipping students with the basic tools necessary for vocational discernment and capacity building for active insertion in academic dynamics. To access the intended general training cycle, the student must pass six subjects. General training is made up of 18 subjects that support studies and experiences capable of articulating “[...] theoretical training with knowledge of the diversity of contexts, situations and practices of educational activity” (UBA, 2016, p. 7).

The oriented training cycle, in turn, leads the student to major disciplinary areas and to theoretical-practical references predominant in each of them. Despite not constituting a specialization, this cycle results from the student's choice of deepening training in one of the major areas, so that, in the set of 11 disciplines, the training experience stems from “[...] student in a research project (project II) and a professional practice project or intervention linked to its orientation (project III) (UBA, 2016, p. 8). It is interesting to point out that, even choosing a certain area, the student must take at least two compulsory subjects in another area, as this encourages the diversification of learning.

The subject “Pedagogy” is required and a prerequisite for a series of other subjects, being offered in the general training cycle beside Contemporary Pedagogical Problems, Didactics I and II, Educational Investigation I and II, etc. In the oriented training cycle, Pedagogy appears as a large area that brings together 06 compulsory and 05 optional subjects, named: Popular Education; Contemporary Pedagogical Problems and Currents; Critical

Pedagogies and Experiences of Praxis in Latin America; Research in Pedagogy: epistemological and methodological problems; Project II (investigation); Project III (professional practice or intervention).

The other areas of guided training are: Socio-Historical-Cultural Area; Policy and Administration Area; Area of Education, Technologies and Communication; Didactics Area; Area of Psychopedagogy, Psychology and Learning; Area of Teacher Training, Education and Work.

The Degree in Sciences of Education at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP) has a curricular organization similar to that of the UBA, covering 24 components in the basic training cycle and 04 in the guided training cycle. This last cycle is organized into three study orientations that work as formative emphases: a) Orientation in Didactics; b) Orientation in Educational Psychology; c) Orientation in Education, Society and Educational Institution. The study plan that regulates the course dates from 2006.

The formative orientation of the course is supported by a plural understanding of the field of professional performance of the graduates, which ranges from teaching practices to areas of “[...] Non-School Education, Labor Training, Institutional Advisory, and Training of Trainers” ( UNLP, 2002, p. 92-93). Initial training also seeks to cover “the development of competences for research as part of the new occupational roles of specialists in education” (UNLP, 2002, p. 94). The study plan traces, in this sense, a thread of correlation between different components that recognize the specificity of pedagogical practice beyond teaching, which, even linked to the teacher's work, is not limited to it.

In a different way of the plan of studies for the Degree in Sciences of Education at UBA, the UNLP document does not specifically refer to the epistemological problem of Pedagogy and do not even had a training area oriented to this field. However, it includes two components entitled “Pedagogy I” and “Pedagogy II”.

The subject “Pedagogy I” has the following basic contents:

The discipline “Pedagogy II”, in turn, includes:

The Universidad de Córdoba offers two courses at the Escuela de Ciencias de la Educación: professorship in Sciences of Education (4 years duration - 2080 hours) and Licensure in Sciences of Education (5 years - 3040 hours). The curricular organization of the Licensure course, similarly to the UBA and UNLP courses, includes a common basic training cycle and a professional training cycle. Like the other courses, the professional training cycle (a curricular diversification device) is organized in axes that reflect training specialties in the field: 1) Psychopedagogy; 2) Pedagogical Advice and Teacher Training; 3) Continuing Training and Labor Training; 4) Educational Research (UNC, 2003).

The professional field of the graduate is presented as follows:

- Dependencies of the Ministries and Secretariats of Education, Health, Social Affairs, Labor, among others, of the national, provincial or municipal jurisdictions. - Educational institutions of the different levels of the educational system. - National Universities. - Labor and production institutions. - NGOs, groups, social organizations and trade unions. - Communities and families (UNC, 2003, p. 7).

The arrangement of the components in cycles and the wide elective offer are aspects that characterize the curricular fluidity and diversification as a principle of organizing the course and the training experience, guaranteeing “[...] differentiated curricular spaces based on the workload and work methodology: or 'subjects' (96 hours), 'workshops' and 'seminars' (32, 48 and 64 hours)” (UNC, 2003 , p. 11).” For a course that serves a broad and plural professional field, curricular diversification becomes necessary.

Among the subjects of the basic cycle is the one entitled “Pedagogy”, whose content is described as:

Pedagogy in the current socio-economic and academic context. Knowledge: production, transmission. Appropriation and quality of public education as substantive issues. Crisis of Pedagogy and Pedagogy of the crisis. The pedagogical project of modernity. The ideas of Rousseau and Dewey. The new, the modern and the traditional. Pedagogy and education. The object of study of Pedagogy. The specificity of Pedagogy. Pedagogy and Educational Sciences. The social construction of pedagogical discourse. Characteristics of the field of education: formal, non-formal and informal. The school as a formal educational institution: its pedagogical dimension and the notion of institutional pedagogical project. Towards a new school. Innovative project experiences. Educational relations in the social, school and classroom spheres. The teacher-student-knowledge triad. Education, society, economy, culture, politics. Democracy and education. symbolic control. Educational challenges of the new century (UNC, 2003, p.15).

The formative configurations of Science of Education courses in the Argentine context indicate a process of reconstruction of the place of Pedagogy in the intellectual field of education. The presence of specific disciplines on Pedagogy represents an effort to affirm it within the Sciences of Education, so that its specificity and relevance in the production of scientific knowledge about education are problematized in the training of professionals in the field.

Contents related to the purposes and scopes of education, epistemological paradigms in Pedagogy, ethical-political implications in the constitution of the pedagogical field and the role played by pedagogical knowledge in the training and practice of school and non-school educators gain prominence in the composition of the subjects. The study plans of the three universities consider that the professional field of the graduate should include school and non- school spaces.

Finally, it is emphasized that all study plans are based on two important assumptions when they seek to guide training practices in a course whose graduates can work in different spaces performing different modalities of pedagogical practice beyond teaching: flexibility and curriculum diversification. Flexibility occurs when there is a greater supply of elective components and diversification when training specialties are derived from the basic cycle that meet the disciplinary and practical pluralization of the field of Sciences of Education.

5 Pedagogy in Mexico

The higher education courses in Pedagogy in Mexico were instituted in the 1950s, preceded by training in Pedagogy at the secondary level at the “Normal Schools”. For this reason, the expression “universitary pedagogue” is still used to refer to the graduates of this higher education course that was initially offered by the Pedagogy College of the Universidad Autonoma de México, in 1955 (^{CAZALES, 2008}).

The first Pedagogy course already had components related to Pedagogical Research in its disciplinary organization, a factor that introduced epistemological and methodological concerns about the production of scientific knowledge in education as a structuring aspect of the field of Pedagogy itself in the training of pedagogues. When analyzing the disciplinary configuration of educational studies, Suasnábar recognizes that is evidenced, in Mexico, "[...] research on the formation of Pedagogy at the university, the origins of institutionalization of educational research until recent developments" (2013, p. 1283).

Currently, the Pedagogy course is established as a training locus for professionals with a wide spectrum of knowledge and practices related to different areas of activity that transcend institutions and school processes. In the Mexican context, the pedagogue is not defined by the exercise of teaching. It is important to point out that in a few Mexican universities there is also the offer Science of Education courses and that the training of teachers for Elementary Education takes place both in university courses and in Normal Schools.

According to Cazales, “the career of pedagogy in Mexico is institutionally based on the idea and pedagogical concerns of the founding fathers, of universitary pedagogy: Manuel C. Tello in the UV and Francisco Larroyo in the UNAM” (2008b, p. 01). Concerns revolved around the need to train universitaries pedagogues who, unlike normal students, experience training that prepares them to conduct different processes in educational institutions, with an emphasis on pedagogical research. Since its emergence, the Pedagogy course has been recognized as one that prepares a professional in a broader perspective than the teaching practice.

The UNAM College of Pedagogy was created by Larroyo in 1955, replacing the Department of Sciences of Education. The College's first professor, Roberto Solís Quiroga, instituted, in that same year, the Master's and Doctoral courses in Pedagogy. The theoretical perspective of Pedagogy institutionally assumed in the process of foundation and functioning of the College was that of German and neo-Kantian influence, with a strong presence of philosophical approaches around educational purposes and means, according to Cazales and Buenfil-Burgos (2018). These were the bases by which Pedagogy moves from the training of teachers/normalists to acquire an academic character of theorization field about human formation in search of theoretical and methodological reasons to establish itself as a guiding science of educational action.

As Furlán and Peña point out, epistemological concerns are latent in the history of the Pedagogy course since its beginnings, because “the characterization of the formation of the pedagogue in Mexico is an exercise of reflection that would require delimiting the pedagogy as a differentiated discipline of Sciences of Education” (2017, p. 214). The authors point out that the relationship between the course and the graduate's work field was designed from a perspective of differentiation of Pedagogy in relation to other professional knowledge and practices, including those performed by teachers.

Despite not having a homogeneous position around the Pedagogy identity question, given that the relationship between the field and the course unfolds according to the contextual elements of each institution, their references and their actors, Cruz affirms that there is a certain consensus in Mexico that "[...] it is distinguished by having a conceptual and also operational discourse to analyze educational problems" (2019, p. 21).

The professional field of the pedagogue involves different spaces and educational processes, but, as in Brazil, it is not regulated in such a way that training in Pedagogy consists of a requirement for the exercise of many of the functions mentioned. This circumstance is the reason for recurring identity crises. According to Olmos, "the world of work, by the pedagogue, is viewed as a world threatened by the work of another university student or graduate" (2007, p. 269).

From 1982, a period of transformation began that involved the educational policies of Mexico, marked by the opening of the country to the international economy and the decline of protectionism as a State model. The decrease in investments in social policies, the progress in privatization and the deepening of inequality will have a frontal impact on the training and work of pedagogues, accentuating processes of professional crisis due to the scarcity of vacancies in the public sector and due to the ideological pressure to educate according to business logic (^{AGUILAR, 2007}).

Currently, the Pedagogy course is offered by several Mexican universities. For the purpose of this research, it was decided to examine the formative configurations and curricular components of the courses of the precursor universities in the offer of the Pedagogy in Mexico as previously reported: Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of UNAM and Universidad Veracruzana (UV).

According to information available on the UNAM institutional website, in the 2020- 2 021 academic cycle, 10,032 people applied for admission to the Pedagogy Course (presential and distance learning), competing for the 1,420 available places. That is, for each vacancy there were 07 people interested in joining the course. Of the total number of students enrolled, 76% were women and 24% were men, which indicates the preponderance of the female gender in the course, as is historically observed in Brazil.

The course is guided by the conception of the pedagogue as a professional who:

[ ...] comprehensively studies education to describe, understand, explain, evaluate and intervene in the strengthening and improvement of educational processes, analyzes and proposes alternative solutions to problems related to the educational field, in addition to serving various sectors of the population that require pedagogical help. Develops teaching activities, educational orientation, permanent education and training, educational administration and management, curriculum development, communication and research in this field, in public and private institutions or in the free exercise of the profession, attending to the different orientations of professional practice (UNAM, 2022, s.p).

The text emphasizes plurality as a characteristic feature of the pedagogue's professional field, understanding it, above all, through of analytical processes as a structuring aspect of various forms of pedagogical interventions. The course lasts for 8 semesters and the study plan dates from 2010.

Following the international trend of curricular diversification as a strategy to serve the professional segments of the pedagogue and the plural academic interests of the students, the Pedagogy course has a common trunk of disciplines until the 6th semester, branching out into areas of deepening in the 7th and 8th. The characteristic is that the areas integrates professional scopes and fields of studies of Pedagogy, so the student can develop studies oriented to research and academic production, as well as to educational intervention practices. Another element worth mentioning is the strong expression of “Pedagogical Investigation” as a training dimension that is covered by 06 subsequent disciplines. The sequencing of Pedagogical Investigation disciplines throughout the course expresses the idea that, in any scenario of practices, the investigative process must be structuring of pedagogical work, which gives it a reflexive and systematic character. The regulatory documents for the Pedagogy course in Brazil, on the other hand, insist on a unitarist vision that makes it difficult to reposition the pedagogue profession in the face of these challenges.

According to the study plans of the disciplines available on the UNAM website, those that cover themes around the problem of the specificity of the disciplinary field of Pedagogy are: a) Pedagogical Investigation 1; b) Pedagogical Theory 1; c) Pedagogical Theory 2. The course “Pedagogical Investigation 1” is guided by the formative expectations that the student:

Distinguish the different types of knowledge, as well as the canons of scientificity of the social sciences and specifically of pedagogy.

Explain the evolution of the social sciences and humanities to arrive at an understanding of the status of pedagogy.

Explain the conceptualization of pedagogy and the breadth of its object of study.

Explain the classification of pedagogical research and the theoretical epistemological positions that support it.

Distinguish the different phases to develop a general scheme of pedagogical research.

Discriminate between the different methodological approaches which is the ideal one to investigate based on the chosen topic.

Prepare research reports with an adequate critical apparatus (UNAM, 2022, s/p).

The following excerpt was taken from the teaching plan for the subject “Pedagogical Theory 1” and refers to the training objectives that guide students' learning.

It will provide a general overview of the field of pedagogical theory that allows you to become familiar with this field of knowledge, it will identify the object of the study of pedagogy, based on the analysis of the concepts and fundamental questions that arise, as well as its implications in the training, the production of knowledge and the study of the current educational situation. It will count on the historical, cultural and epistemological tools for the analysis of different pedagogical theories, particularly those related to classical thinking (UNAM, 2022, s/p).

In the subject “Pedagogical Theory 2” the study of contemporary theories is initiated, especially those that are more closely related to the Latin American context.

It will expand its theoretical formation based on the analysis of several contemporary pedagogical theories, their historical relevance and the forms of appropriation-production to which they have given rise, particularly in Latin American countries (UNAM, 2022, s/p).

The Pedagogy course at the Universidad Veracruzana is offered in the presential model at three Faculties (Vera Cruz, Region of Poza Rica Tuxpan and Xalapa) and at a distance. The curriculum organization provides that the student must complete 381 credits that can be paid in three ways: minimum load (twelve periods - six years), regular load (eight periods - four years) and maximum load (six periods - three years). The current study plan has been in effect since 2016 and, like the UNAM course, covers a broad view of pedagogue training in different professional areas. The course projects a professional profile guided by a vision of sustainable education aimed at the integral development of the subject and enabling transformations at the individual and collective levels. According to the document, “these elements of analysis and reading of reality, allow us to recognize, in some way, the current social panorama that functions as a broad social framework of analysis in front of what there is to look at the reality of Mexican society” (UV , 2016, p. 17). Faced with these dilemmas, the course seeks to respond to socio-educational needs from the field of Pedagogy, advocating a formative perspective in which knowledge and practices of the performance of pedagogues in public and private school institutions are present (in educational management and guidance and also , in teaching disciplines in their own field), cultural dissemination and permanent education bodies, in professional training programs, in research bodies, programs of educational attention to emerging groups and community education.

From this conception derives a training base oriented in two converging directions: the investigation and the pedagogical praxis, understood as “project-realization-verification of formative and transformative processes in the context of concrete historical, social and cultural situations” (UV. 2016, p. 40). The curriculum is organized in three areas: General Basic Training (offered to all students at the University), Training for Initiation to the Discipline (which is organized in the cores of pedagogical, human and social training) and Training Terminal (in which a pedagogical intervention project is carried out in one of the pedagogue's professional fields). The pedagogical training core centralizes the foundations of Pedagogy and its methodological developments. In the core of social formation there are experiences that provide the learning of professional practices guided by a cosmovision of a fair and diverse society, while in the core of human formation it is oriented towards the ethical bases that should guide professional conduct. The area of disciplinary training articulates training paths according to the following professional practices: teaching and pedagogical mediation; curricular processes and socio-educational projects; educational; educational and social advice; Thecnology and Pedagogy; and Educational Research. Like the other courses analyzed in this research, the curriculum is open to the possibility of choice by students according to their interests and possibilities and has a wide range of electives.

Among the components articulated in the curricular matrix, stand out two that are directly relevant to the research objectives that originated this work: “Introduction to Pedagogy” and “Epistemology and Pedagogy”, both offered in the first semester of the course.

The subject “Introduction to Pedagogy” is described as a component that

It analyzes the different conceptualizations of pedagogy and education to find its meaning and resignification through historically defined theoretical, methodological and praxeological knowledge. As well as the different pedagogical proposals of the professional field of the pedagogue in its current debate, through reflective dialogue with an attitude of openness, tolerance, awareness and social commitment (UV, 2016, p. 112).

Although it is parallel to “Introduction to Pedagogy”, the discipline “Epistemology and Pedagogy”, in turn, deepens the epistemological reflection on Pedagogy based on studies on theories of knowledge and their implications for the conceptualization of the educational process, analyzing them from a critical approach, as can be seen from the description below.

Analyzes the epistemic perspectives that support the origin of knowledge and that give rise to the various theoretical positions in the educational field, with an attitude of commitment to the reconstruction of pedagogical complexity through a critical and active approach (UV, 2016, p. 113).

As in other countries, the disciplinary condition of Pedagogy in Mexico is involved by conceptual gaps that, insofar as they are recognized academically, should guide the construction of institutional study agendas and the affirmation of their specific character. Since its emergence in the 1950s, the Pedagogy course is directly linked to pedagogical research, a circumstance that installs in the training process the problem about the domain and the process of construction of pedagogical knowledge. This is not just an abstract discussion, as it is involved in the delimitation of the professional scope of the pedagogue.

The questions about what Pedagogy is and about how and what is the purposes of pedagogical knowledge cross study plans and reaffirms the plural sense of pedagogical practice in different school and non-school settings. Based on the realization that the challenges of a society of transformations and inequalities, Pedagogy is operated as a knowledge and a profession linked to relevant purposes. To reference these scenarios in the training process, the curriculum of the two courses are divided into a common part and a diversified part, allowing the student to choose thematic paths in areas of study or professional practice.

6 Comparative synthesis and final considerations

This study did not intend to create decontextualized comparative parameters that would contrast the Pedagogy courses analyzed. For this very reason, the analysis of training configurations and curricular components was articulated with considerations around the contexts of academic institutionalization of training in Pedagogy in each of the focused countries. This movement of historical and conceptual reading of the field of Pedagogy according to the specific markers of its academic trajectory in different countries provided signs to draw a reflective comparison framework on the approximations and distances between each of them. Contrary to what it may seem and despite the discontinuities and gaps in the studies on Pedagogy in each country, there are groups and subjects imbued with the purpose of deepening theorizations about the disciplinary field in which pedagogical knowledge is rooted from a critical perspective around of its social uses.

There is a certain consensus that Pedagogy constitutes a specific domain of knowledge, but this consensus is not based on a homogeneous argument that considers it a Science of Education. In Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, the tendency observed in the study is that the specificities of Pedagogy are established in the relationship with the Sciences of Education. The Brazilian authors dedicated to the subject, in turn, formulate arguments that defend Pedagogy as the Science of Education. However, contradictorily, even in countries where the paradigm of Educational Sciences shows a strong incidence in the practices of training and educational research, Pedagogy has specific contours as an area of production of knowledge that emerges from theorizing about educational purposes and unfolds in the orientation normative practices and in the construction of the educators' professionalism. Despite the efforts of many researchers who, in the last three decades, have theoretically supported the debate on the nature of Pedagogy in Brazil. The Brazilian tradition of training in the Pedagogy course has historically avoided this debate, being inhabited by restrictive academic representations of pedagogical knowledge and the profession of pedagogue.

The Pedagogy (Mexico and Colombia) and Educational Sciences (Argentina) courses do not have as their central assignment the training of teachers for the initial stages of Basic Education; this is unique to the Brazilian case. The pedagogue and the graduate in Sciences of Education are recognized by a plural prism of knowledge and professional practices that transcend school institutions. In the study plans of all the foreign institutions considered in the research, the professional field is clearly presented and the different pedagogical practices are named in a particular way, unlike the Brazilian case in which, according to the DCN (BRASIL, 2006), they are summarily designated as teaching practices. The field of work of the graduates of these courses is not fully regulated in any of the countries, since recent educational policies fiercely contribute to the delegitimization of professionals who conceptually think about educational processes to can intervene in them and, from that point of view, reflexive insertion, produce subsidies to enhance processes of social change. This is an international trend that derives from the restructuring of the neoliberal capitalist mode of production, in which the logic of competence makes room for professionals without training in Pedagogy, but with the practical expertise required by the business, to install themselves in positions traditionally reserved for pedagogues.

The academic institutionalization of Pedagogy is being or was guided by collective efforts in each of the countries. In Colombia, the Colombian Pedagogical Movement resorted to a theory of Pedagogy as a reaction against technicist-based educational reforms from the 1 970s onwards, by groups that sparked, nationally, discussions about pedagogical knowledge. In Argentina, the Chairs of Pedagogy collaborate with the maintenance of this disciplinary field in the training of graduates in Sciences of Education, organizing reflective guidelines that make visible the possibilities of pedagogical thinking largely committed to counter- hegemonic policies. In Mexico, the faculties of Pedagogy and the Master's and Doctoral courses in Pedagogy act as catalyst spaces for pedagogical research as a founding characteristic of the disciplinary field and the formation of the pedagogue, as opposed to restrictive representations that hover in the Brazilian tradition.

Recognizing the complexity of Pedagogy and, in the case of the Degree in Sciences of Education, of the intellectual field on educational processes, all courses from foreign institutions have a curricular organization based on the principle of diversification of the training experience, which is given by the offer of paths/areas for conceptual or professional deepening. This is an important device for configuring curricular that are more flexible to the interests of students and social demands addressed to training in Pedagogy. In Brazil, after the extinction of professional specializations as a result of the DCN of 2006, few courses offer opportunities for training diversification beyond Early Childhood Education and the Early Years of Elementary School.

The analysis of the formative configurations allowed the formulation of some indicators that can collaborate with the reflections on the curricular organization of Brazilian courses: delimitation of specific components for thematization of Pedagogy; clarity in the definition of the graduate's professional field with studies that support curriculum planning, guiding the composition of disciplines and training activities that touch different pedagogical practices; strong presence of components linked to Pedagogical or Educational Research; ethical-political orientation linked to emerging social issues and civilizational challenges in the Latin American context; wide range of optional components.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the changes imposed on the Pedagogy course by the current educational policies in force in Brazil, inspired by the economic logic, have mobilized counter-hegemonic forces of active and creative resistance to defend the course. In the process of institutional and political mobilization, several groups are contributing to the resurgence of the conceptual debate involving Pedagogy as a science, course and profession, such as the National Network of Researchers in Pedagogy (RePPed). The potential of this movement could result in the institutionalization of studies on Pedagogy, pedagogical research and the profession of pedagogue, central aspects in facing the identity crisis and the training gaps manifest in the Brazilian case.