This article explores the political, religious, and ideological backdrop to psychology and pedagogy under Franco's dictatorship. To this end, it analyses the important research carried out between 1940 and 1944 by the psychologist and pedagogue José J. Jover y Piquer into the intelligence, mentality, and moral judgement of a large number of…

During the Spanish Golden Age, language was developing fast. An important debate on orthology and orthography was taking place at the time. Many authors posed different proposals for a reform of spelling. The arguments discussed in these works also included educational considerations in favour of their proposals, which makes them an invaluable…

If the specificity of the architectural space is considered as a measuring element in the education scope to value the prominence of teaching throughout history, it is worth mentioning that the configuration of the vocational training center as a first-rate education scenario that arrives half century of delay with respect to schools, has few…

Not only in education, but also in other social practices, the history of "internationalisation" is correlative to the history of "nationalisation". In this broad sense, this article outlines four main constellations of the links between education and nationalisation/internationalisation dynamics. After a brief description of…

In order to analyse the cultural values of Spanish liberalism, this paper describes the prohibition of corporal punishment in secondary education. The evolution of education laws and codes during the nineteenth century reveals great hope and confidence in building up an academic authority based exclusively on the power of reason and capable of…

This article explores the implementation of the English model of teachers' centres in the context of 1980s Spain. Originally it was a top-down plan initiated by a national government. However, from the very beginning its fate was dependent on a bottom-up educational project carried out by pedagogical social movements. The first part of the article…

Throughout the history of education different conceptions have been developed about the role and the function that education has in society as a whole. Such conceptions have been constructed around different discourses that show underlying social conflicts. The different educational practices acquire their legitimacy through such discourses, which…

School failure is substantive in Spain. The percentage of students that do not achieve the compulsory education diploma is around 20%. School failure is higher for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Students who "fail" cannot continue to post-compulsory education and, sooner or later, they have to leave formal education. The…

This article analyses the creation of the schools called "ikastolas" throughout the Basque Country from the 1960s onwards. The name "ikastola" refers to a unique school model whose major characteristic is to teach the majority of subjects in the Basque language, or "euskera." It outlines the reasons why some of these…

Background/Context: Traditional adult education in Spain treated the learner as a mere object that could be shaped by the educator. Although current practices of the democratic adult education movement in Spain reveals a completely opposite standpoint on adult education, there has been little analysis of the several influences converging and…

In this article an analysis is undertaken of Spanish educational discourse during the early years of the Franco regime, from the Civil War (1936-1939) to the establishment of the "Nuevo Estado" or New State (1939-1943), employing Reinhart Koselleck's principles of conceptual history. Without totally spurning the totalitarian and fascist…

The Popular Front line made the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) a more hospitable place for "brain workers." The emphasis the line placed on mass ideological and cultural struggle against fascism meant that they became important allies to be won for the working class. As the principal transmitters of ideology and culture to the…

The high rate of child mortality registered during the early months of the Civil War led the Republican authorities to initiate several operations to evacuate youngsters with the purpose of protecting and saving the children of Spain. At the beginning, the children were evacuated to zones in the interior of the country far removed from the front…

During the Spanish Second Republican government (April 1931-July 1939), there was an institutional initiative in the country called "Misiones Pedagogicas", deeply based in the early Deweyan conception of Progressive Education. The aim of this project was bringing access to culture, entertainment and some sort of progress to rural areas…

This article analyses the schooling process in rural areas of Galicia (Spain) from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, considering educational initiatives promoted by both the state and the rural population. The former, which were governed by the official school culture, were driven by a moralistic approach; the latter, within the…