Background and early history of the Spanish Comparative Education Society

Abstract

In this article, the authors examine the origins of comparative education in Spain, analyzing the process of its university institutionalization. After taking a brief look at the vestiges of the period prior to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) they review the active role played by Professor Juan Tusquets, who set the groundwork for the preliminary institutionalization of the discipline, from the 1958 journal Perspectivas Pedagógicas (Educational Perspectives) and the Institute for Comparative Education (1964), part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) affiliated with the University of Barcelona. The first steps to develop and implement the Spanish Comparative Education Society were taken in 1974 and for the first two decades, through 1994, the Society was run by Professor Ricardo Marín Ibáñez. After 1995, with the appearance of the Revista Española de Educación Comparada (Spanish Journal of Comparative Education), the Society came of age, both scientifically and academically.