Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The dissemination of a particular public image of rural schools ―ever since the poorest and most disadvantaged schools― has frequently been used by the ruling classes and / or political parties to document the rate of modernity and/or backwardness of the national school system, depending on the respective propaganda needs. Moving from the first photographic surveys conducted in Southern Italy in 1920s by the associations engaged in the socio-economic integration of the South into the Unitary State to get to the photo reportages published in some magazines in the 1950s, the article analyses in depth the manipulation of the public image of these particular schools as it emerges by the circulation of such photographs on daily newspapers and magazines, which reveals its propagandistic use over time.

Without doubt, the most outstanding professional and intellectual contribution, among the different activities carried out by Rafael Ballester in the first three decades in the 20th century, was that of authoringnumerous remarkably successful school textbooks.. The figure of this high school teacher personifies the worries, determinations and efforts of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza to improve history and geography teaching in Spain. His other facets, as a historian of education, as a researcher of scientific methodology and didactics of teaching and as a pioneer in studies of historic historiography, pale beside the strength of his contributions as a successful author of school handbooks of history and geography.

Coinciding with the presentation of reports on the need for a national system of education, from the second half of the 18th century until the first years of the 19th century, several initiatives were formulated in Spain for the creation of a favourable opinion regarding the training of theatre professionals. The creation of theatre schools and the organization of theatres themselves was also encouraged, in general accordance with reports and records. In addition to legitimizing the theatre professions, it also served to bolster the public image of the theatre professionals, as theatre was considered an instrument in popular education. With this paper, written after a review of available literature and an analysis of what configures the scientific and normative cultures in theatre education, we offer a panoramic view of how the idea of an educational justification for professional theatre training was formulated, while also considering some empirical realizations.

This article analyzes the contents of the school hygiene textbooks for teachers, from the publication of the first Manual or guide for the examinations of Cuban teachers, in 1902 - the date of the establishment of the Republic of Cuba -, up until the edition of the Basic Fundamentals of Hygiene Escolar, in 1963, after the nationalization of education that came with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Rather than attempting to describe each of the ten textbooks studied, our main objective is to identify trends showing continuity as well as changes in content and hygienic-pedagogical approaches.The structure of the text responds essentially to methodological conceptions for the analysis of the publishing world as related to the specialized manuals in Cuba. In particular, the public (political) «uses» of school hygiene in pedagogical discourses are analyzed, according to the rhetoric of Cuban nationalism in different contexts, as well as its incidence in the changes of denomination and curricular orientation that mediate between the conception of the subject Physiology and Hygiene (1902-1944) and that of Education for Health (1944-1963).

Review of the book by Luca Montecchi, I contadini a scuola. La scuola rurale in Italia dall’unità alla caduta del fascismo.

Over the course of her career, Emilia Pardo Bazán always had a continuing concern for educational issues, particularly as they related to women. Her participation in the Hispano-Portuguese-American Pedagogical Conference (1892) marked a turning point in the way women’s education was seen in Spain. The first part of this article presents an analysis of her lecture, the ensuing discussions among the participants and the repercussions it had in the press. In the second part, we have focused on minister Julio Burell’s decision to institute a professorship of Modern Literature in Neo-Latin languages, which was designed for the Galician writer, in the doctoral programme of the School of Philosophy and Liberal Arts at the Central University (1916). The professorship was to be awarded by means of an extraordinary procedure as regulated in the Moyano Act, but the candidate did not receive the support of two of the three institutions called upon to decide: the Royal Spanish Academy and the School of Philosophy and Liberal Arts. The only vote in favour came from the Council of Public Instruction, where she was a member. Despite this resistance, the minister went ahead with the proposal and awarded Doña Emilia the professorship.

The article presents a theoretical and historiographical reflection on the links between image and truth, taking as a lens the analysis of the propagandistic image that privileges its political function over others. I will approach this question through some images that were taken as part of a Nazi propaganda film, shot in Westerbork, a work camp in the Netherlands, in 1944. Despite their origin, some of these images have been integrated into the iconography of WWII, and have been used as documents in trials, documentaries and exhibits critical of the Nazis; some others have been invisibilized, perhaps because they are not easily integrated into the frameworks that make the event legible. Along with the reconstruction of the history of this film, I will analyze the re-montage that German filmmaker Harun Farocki (1944-2014) did in his film Aufschub/Respite (2007). Farocki invites to suspend the images to be able to see in them the traces of the human beings that went through the camp; he brings in knowledge and positions that open up other meanings. His methodological approach, which is also ethical and political, deals with the dilemmas of working with and through propaganda images, and can bring valuable reflections and strategies for the historians of education

Review of the book Maite Paliza Munduate, El proyecto de las escuelas de barriada y su desarrollo (1919-1938). Una epopeya en la historia de la educación de Bizkaia.

Review of the book by José Ramón López Bausela, La Escuela Azul de Falange  española de las J.O.N.S. Un proyecto fascista desmantelado por implosión

In 1954, one of the most innovative educational experiences of the decade took place in rural Uruguay: the First Experimental School Nucleus of La Mina. It was directed by Miguel Soler Roca, a Spanish-Uruguayan teacher who had been awarded a scholarship to study basic education in CREFAL,shortly after the creation of this organism. In 1958 Margaret J. Anstee, Representative of the UN in Uruguay, went to La Mina to interview him. She thought that it would show the keys to the success of the proposal and would explore the possibility of exporting the experience as an inspiring model in other latitudes. The present text transcribes this interview, unpublished until  now, contextualizing it with other documents that explain the development of this initiative.