This article aims to present some interpretations on the development of the new school movement in Argentina, with special focus on its relationship with the cultural modernization processes and with the political currents of the 1920s and 1930s, on its elements of continuity and differentiation with regard to the pedagogic tradition of normal schools typical of the last few decades of the nineteenth century, and on its impact on the renewal of the intellectual field of pedagogy. In the second part of this article, a topography will be outlined throwing light on how this movement specifically developed in Argentina, trying to identify the most salient features of an educational experience that combined the internationalization of pedagogic thinking with the creation of educational projects with local traits. The author's hypothesis is that this movement deserves to be reread from the point of view of its cultural importance, its experimental nature and its controversial position in the history of pedagogy in Argentina, as it embodies the set of tensions and contradictions typical of the first half of the twentieth century in a cycle of expansion of the educational system, social and cultural modernization and development of pedagogic thinking.