ABSTRACT
This article analyses the concept of the state as represented in primary school social science textbooks in Spain during the transition to democracy. The analysis of textbooks during this period has tended to focus on the importance of National Catholicism (Nacionalcatolicismo) or the technocratic vision in the framing of their representations. This article points to how such representations should be viewed from a more complex perspective that lays the emphasis on how the dictatorship understood education within the context of the Cold War. The first part of the article analyses the explanations given by textbooks during the transition. The second part dissects the subsequent evolution of the representations. Lastly, we attempt to explain why these representations and changes came about.
6. COI-statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
2 The literature on Franco era textbook analysis is very broad. We will only give a few examples of the most recent works, such as García Fernández (Citation2017) or Mahamud Angulo (Citation2016).
3 There are some publications that present exceptions. See Mahamud Angulo et al. (Citation2016) or González-Delgado and Ferraz Lorenzo (Citation2018).
4 This same process can be seen in other dictatorships in southern Europe, such as Portugal or Greece. See for example Foukas (Citation2018), Estrela (Citation2019) or Alves and Lima (Citation2018).
5 Modernisation theory was a scientific and ideological tool used by the US to channel the processes of development and decolonisation that began to take place after the Second World War. This theory was based on a range of concepts that dominated much of American social sciences and impregnated its foreign policy. A broader development of this paradigm can be seen in Gilman (Citation2007) and Martín García (Citation2015).
6 In the General Education Act of 1970 primary education was called Basic General Education (EGB). This was organised in eight grades with three stages: first stage: 1st and 2nd grades; second stage: 3rd, 4th and 5th grades; third stage: 6th, 7th and 8th grades. The concept of state and its role in the economic context began to appear in the sixth grade, when the third stage began. For this reason, this research focuses on the 6th, 7th and 8th grades of EGB. This primary education structure would last in Spain until 1990, when a new educational law was introduced: The Organic Law on the General Organisation of the Education System (LOGSE). See Groves (Citation2014, pp. 20–53).
13 During the dictatorship and the transition in Spain, the educational system was centralised: the MEC made decisions regarding the syllabus. In 1981 a process of educational decentralisation began with the Programas Renovados de EGB (Renewed Programmes of EGB) (Citation1981). The Comunidades Autónomas (Regions) could introduce local content to the curriculum. With the 1990 LOGSE Act, educational decentralisation expanded to its present extent, and a new governance began to develop. See Verger and Pagès (Citation2018).
14 Ministerial Order extending the Ministerial Order of 29 November 1976, which established new contents in the teaching guidelines for the social sciences in the second stage of Basic General Education, BOE (Official State Gazette) of 3 December 1976, No. 290 and BOE of 29 July 1977, No.180 .
15 Law of 19 July 1944 (BOE 21/07/1944).
Bromley, P. and Lerch, J. (2018) Human rights as cultural globalisation: the rise of human rights in textbooks, 1890–2013. In E. Fuchs and A. Bock (Eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies (345–356) (New York, Palgrave Macmillan). Roldán Vera, E. and Fuchs, E. (Eds.). (2018) Textbooks and War: Historical and Multinational Perspectives (Cham, Palgrave-Macmillan) García Fernández, M. (2017) Sexualidad y armonía conyugal en la España franquista. Representaciones de género en manuales sexuales y conyugales publicados entre 1946 y 1968, Ayer, 105 (1), 215–238. Mahamud Angulo, K. (2016) Emotional indoctrination through sentimental narrative in Spanish primary education textbooks during the Franco dictatorship (1939 – 1959), History of Education, 45 (5), 653–678. doi:10.1080/0046760X.2015.1101168 Mahamud Angulo, K., Groves, T., Milito Barone, C. and Hernández Laina, Y. (2016) Civic education and visions of war and peace in the Spanish transition to democracy, Paedagogica Historica, 52 (1–2), 169–187. doi:10.1080/00309230.2015.1133677 González-Delgado, M. and Ferraz-Lorenzo, M. (2018) The Concept of ‘Consumption’ in the school textbooks during the democratic transition in Spain (1977-1982), Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 10 (2), 109–128. doi:10.3167/jemms.2018.100206 Foukas, V. (2018) Challenges in Greek education during the 1960s: the 1964 educational reform and its overthrow, Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, 5 (1), 71–93. doi:10.14516/ete.215 Estrela, E. (2019) The knowledge of policies: the personal dimension in curriculum policies in Portugal, British Journal of Educational Studies, 67 (2), 217–233. doi:10.1080/00071005.2018.1444730 Alves, L. A. and Lima, R. G. (2018) A Telescola … é uma imensa sala de aula, do tamanho da lusitana faixa atlântica!, Cadernos De História Da Educaçao, 17 (2), 491–514. doi:10.14393/che-v17n2-2018-13 Gilman, N. (2007) Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press) Martín García, O. J. (2015) Una utopía secular. La Teoría de la Modernización y la política exterior estadounidense en la Guerra Fría, Historia y Política, 34, 27–52. Groves, T. (2014) Teachers and the Struggle for Democracy in Spain, 1970-1985 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan) Valls, R. (2007) Historiografía Escolar Española: Siglos XIX Y XX (Madrid, UNED) Evans, R. (2011) The Hope for American School Reform: The Cold War Pursuit of Inquiry Learning in Social Studies (New York, Palgrave Macmillan) Woyshner, C. and Bohan, C. (Eds). (2012) Histories of Social Studies and Race, 1865–2000 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan) Steedman, C. (2001) Dust: The Archive and Cultural History (Manchester, Manchester University Press) McCulloch, G. (2004) Documentary Research in Education, History and the Social Sciences (London, Routledge) González Clouté, J. M., González Gil, M. I. and Somoza Rodríguez, M. (2016) The social imaginary of the atomic energy in Spanish textbooks of physics and chemistry: analysis of a specific language, Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 34 (2), 151–166. Mahamud Angulo, K., Groves, T., Milito Barone, C. and Hernández Laina, Y. (2016) Civic education and visions of war and peace in the Spanish transition to democracy, Paedagogica Historica, 52 (1–2), 169–187. doi:10.1080/00309230.2015.1133677 Badanelli, A. (2012) Representing two worlds: illustrations in Spanish textbooks for the teaching of religion and object Lessons (1900–1970), History of Education, 41 (3), 303–338. doi:10.1080/0046760X.2011.598467 Abad Caja, J., Sanmartí Roset, J. M., Albacete Sánchez, J., Cuenca Escribano, J. and Parra Ortiz, J. M. (1979b) Sociedad 80, 7º EGB (Madrid, Santillana) Cases Méndez, J. I., Cabezas Moro, O. and Pavón Espiga, G. (1978) Educación para la convivencia 6º EGB (Madrid, Anaya) Pavón Espiga, G., Cases Méndez, J. I. and Cabezas Moro, O. (1978) Educación para la convivencia 8º EGB (Madrid, Anaya) Ramos, A., Centeno, E., Cuenca, J., Parra, J. M. and Romojano, P. (1977b) Educación para la convivencia, 7º EGB (Madrid, Santillana) Colomer Viadel, A., Ripollés, R., Cortina Orts, M. D. and Montes González, M. (1979) Educación Ética Y Cívica, 8º EGB (Madrid, Bruño) Pavón Espiga, G., Cases Méndez, J. I. and Cabezas Moro, O. (1978) Educación para la convivencia 8º EGB (Madrid, Anaya) Equipo Aula 3. (1983) Bóveda, Ciencias Sociales, 7º EGB (Madrid, Anaya) Ramos, A., Castejón, P., Cortés, M., Sanmartí, J. M., Díez, J. L., Cuenca, J. and Mascaró, J. (1983) Sociedad 6, EGB (Madrid, Santillana) Ramos, A., Castejón, P., Díez, J. L. and Mascaró, J. (1984b) Sociedad 8, EGB (Madrid, Santillana) MEC. (1981) Los Programas Renovados de la EGB: Análisis, Crítica y Alternativa (Madrid, ICE de la UAM) Verger, A. and Pagès, M. (2018) New public management and its effects in the teaching profession: recent trends in Spain and Catalonia. In R. Normand, M. Liu, L. M. Carvalho, D. A. Oliveira and L. LeVasseur (Eds) Education Policies and the Restructuring of the Educational Profession (119–135) (Singapore, Springer). Additional information
Funding
This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España [EDU 2016-78143].