Little intellectuals. Girls' academic secondary education under Francoism: projects, realities and paradoxes

Abstract

The present article examines the situation of girls in Spanish academic secondary education during the first Francoism. It outlines the measures introduced by the Franco Regime that maintained the traditional access for girls to the same academic curriculum followed by boys, although in separate schools. Later, it examines the various projects put forward specifically for female secondary schooling that sought to remove girls from the academic pathway and the reasons for their failure. Finally, the article studies the paradox posed by the fact that, despite official statements against academic education for women, the number of girls in academic secondary education and universities did not stop growing during the first Francoism. For the explanation of this paradox, it seeks to address the unwanted effects of Francoist education policy, especially the effects of social elitism and single-sex education on the presence of girls.

Keywords:

• women
• secondary education
• Spain
• Francoism
• fascism

Notes

^†This article has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Research Project: Epistemology, policy and institutionalization in scientific development: Spanish science from the Second Republic to Dictatorship, FFI2009-09483).

Only exam or free students did not attend classes and studied on their own by different ways (private tutors or teachers, former students, etc.) for official examinations.

Decreto 127, 23 September 1936, Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Defensa Nacional.

Among the total staff of teachers, only the catedráticos were civil servants after a competitive examination similar to French agrégation.

Orden, 31 October 1940, Boletín Oficial del Estado.

Expediente de Narcisa Martín Retortillo, Educación, Box 6036, Archivo General de la Administración (henceforth AGA); Schools heads appointments, Boletín Oficial del Estado, January–May 1939; and Información Universitaria, 20 February 1945, 27 February 1945, 27 September 1948, 28 October 1948 and 16 November 1948.

Objeciones a la reforma de segunda enseñanza, 1938, Box 89/45, Archivo Sáinz Rodríguez.

Proyecto de bases, [1941] Educación, Caja 6081, AGA.

Informe del director General de Enseñanzas Superior y Media, 12 December 1941, Educación, Box 6081, AGA.

[Actas de la Sección Segunda del CNE], January–March 1942, Educación, Box 6086, AGA.

Proyecto … 1941.

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