Debating Education and Political Reform: The Freinet Movement and Democratisation in Spain (1975-1982)

Abstract

In the mid-1960s, the Freinet movement took on new life - first with the name Association for Correspondence and the School Printing Press - Acies -, and later as the Popular School Cooperative Movement - MCEP. In a short space of time, the organisation grew to contain over a hundred members and supporters, who, along with the process of the Transition to democracy, laid the foundations for many of Acies/MCEP's projects - both pedagogical and political projects. Of greatest importance amongst these were conferences, teacher-training seminars and the bulletin Colaboración (1976-1985), which was the organ of expression and communication for Spanish teachers following Freinet's principles. During the period of political transition to democracy, Acies/MCEP was one of the most active and dynamic Educational Renewal Movements in Spain. The present article explores the contributions of the Freinet movement to the democratisation of education in Spain - in particular, the political-pedagogical discussion on the principles and purposes of public education, how to understand it, the problems posed by the existence of privately-subsidised education, and the role of the school as a tool for community development and an arena for civic participation. For these reasons, as a documentary source to be explored in depth, the bulletin Colaboración has been chosen; it offers an example of the pedagogical press for teachers in the Spain of 1970s and 1980s, as it helped shape the educational mindset in place during this period and in the following years.

(Re)Conceptualizando la Renovación Pedagógica en España. Una Revisión Sistemática

“…• En el diseño, construcción y desarrollo de la práctica y la cotidianidad escolar se toman como referencia y se adaptan a la realidad de centro, algunas perspectivas, referentes teóricos y corrientes pedagógicas que en su momento tuvieron un impacto destacado en la mejora de la calidad educativa (Bolaño, 2015;Esteban, 2016;Esteve, 2016;Hernández Huerta y Gómez Sánchez, 2016;Lorenzo Lacruz, 2014Marqués-Sureda, 2011 • La innovación, entendida como los cambios en estrategias y materiales educativos motivados por los avances tecnológicos y la globalización, está presente en el centro escolar. Especialmente, las herramientas digitales entran a formar parte de la cotidianidad escolar (Escudero et al, 2018), ya sea en el trabajo en el aula, la organización del centro o en la relación con el resto de la comunidad fuera del centro escolar.…”

“…Democracy in Education and the Movements of Pedagogic Renovation: evaluation of democratic educational experiences (Ortiz de Santos et al, 2018) Sense of the method of projects in a militant teacher in the Pedagogical Renewal Movements (Torrego y Martínez Scott, 2018) Presentation and contributions of three renovating teachers: Norberto Hernanz, Pablo de Andrés and David Bayon (Ortiz de Santos, 2018) Actualidad de la Renovación Pedagógica en la comunidad de Madrid: un estudio a través de centros escolares representativos (Pericacho y Andrés-Candelas, 2018) Debating education and political reform: the Freinet Movement and democratization in Spain (1975Spain ( -1982 (Hernández Huerta y Gómez Sánchez, 2016) The commitment to Pedagogical Renewal (Esteve, 2016) Pedagogical Renewal and second Vatican council: the cases of the Salle Brothers and the Vedrunas in the Basque country (Berdote et al, 2015) The educational landscape of the digital age: Communication practices pushing (us) forward (De Oliveira et al, 2015) Un acercamiento a los Movimientos de Renovación Pedagógica a partir de las rupturas epistemológicas de los nuevos movimientos sociales (Moscoso, 2011) Promoting inquiry in mathematics and science: Professional development of primary and secondary school teachers (García-García et al Els grups de renovació pedagògica, avui (Pujol y Fabrelles, 2015) Vida cotidiana y renovación pedagógica en el primer ciclo de educación infantil. Un estudio de caso.…”