Childhood, disability and vocational training in Franco's Spain during the 1950s and early 1960s

Abstract

PurposeThis paper analyses the strategies designed by Franco´s dictatorship to address the “problem” of children with physical disabilities, focusing on the relevance given to vocational training.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws mainly on official documents, reports from international organisations, and Spanish experts' papers.FindingsFrancoism turned labour into one of the key pillars of its national project and included vocational training in the different stages of school life. From the mid-1950s, vocational training also became a key factor for the dictatorship's strategy towards disability. Following the recommendations issued by international agencies, Francoism began to adopt different measures towards the rehabilitation of children with disabilities. One of them was the creation, in 1959, of a special unit for adolescents within the National Institute for the Rehabilitation of Invalids. In addition to medical treatment, this unit provided children with education and vocational training.Originality/valueThe value of this paper lies in the fact that the topic it analyses has been little studied. Until now no attention has been given to the special unit for adolescents, despite it being a very interesting example of the medical model of disability and its contradictions. During their stay at the unit children were promised greater autonomy and independence, but their lives also became medicalised and they were forced to collaborate with experts.

Towards an educational modernization process: UNESCO interactions with Franco's Spain (1952–1970)

“…It is based on the idea that the origin and development of the educational modernization process during the years of the dictatorship can be better understood if it is inserted within the agreements and proposals that UNESCO recommended to Spain after World War II. This not only allows us to comprehend how this new direction was conceived, it also serves as a framework with which to explain some of the latest research in Spain focusing on how under Franco educational institutions developed educational modernization projects related to educational technologies (Ossenbach and Groves, 2013; González-Delgado and Groves, 2017, 2020), health education (Terrón et al , 2017; Ferraz Lorenzo, 2020; Del Cura and Martínez-Pérez, 2021) and other educational policies (Ossenbach and Martínez-Boom, 2011). In addition, it also allows us to delve into how the educational modernization process occurred in Spain and broadens the view of some recent research on educational modernization and Spanish foreign relations in this historical time (Townson, 2007; Martín García and Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, 2020).…”