La práctica escolar en Menorca durante el franquismo

Abstract

The historical study of the school practice requires the location and analysis of a whole series of testimonies so far rarely used in historical interpretation –teaching practice reports, notebooks, photographs, etcetera–. Through the historical method, we have approached some of the practices implemented in Minorca (Spain) during the Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975), which has allowed us to detect some of the changes and continuities that occurred in the day-to-day of school. By this analysis we have been able to verify how the practice of the teachers is more determined by their formation and experience than by the norms approved in the political field. The main conclusion of the study is that while the educational legislation wants to break with the school culture of past times, some of the practices implemented during the Dictatorship continue to demonstrate the persistence of an entire series of teaching methodologies and strategies from pedagogical renewal movements. Therefore, we can see how changes in teacher practice do not always have a direct connection to the ruptures that occur at the political level and, on the other hand, we see how these are slow processes in time. This study shows us that, as is the case today, there were historically a whole series of continuities, at the level of school practice, that resisted the political will to impose change.