1938 PRIMARY EDUCATION PROGRAMS. AN (UNPUBLISHED) CURRICULUM FOR THE NEW STATE SCHOOL)

Abstract

The aim of the study we are actually presenting is to analyze the main features of the Primary Teaching Programs developed in 1938, exactly during Pedro Sainz Rodriguez’s ministry, removing them from the archivistic isolation. In order to do that, first of all, we should look at the historical background of the different ways of making a prescriptive curriculum in Primary Education,
highlighting those programs which were penalized by Jesús Hernández, government minister for Public Instruction during the Spanish Second Republic. After that, we proceed to study thoroughly the main characteristics of the abovementioned programs developed during 1938. Finally, the conclusions
found highlight, on one hand, the necessity of tackling these programs content from different perspectives in order to interpret the host of circumstances which contribute to decide to keep them unpublished in spite of being officially
approved. On the other hand, whereas the commission presented to the government minister independent designs for the different types of School, they maintained the idea of the Primary Education Curriculum as an answer to only one purpose: to put it at the service of the politic targets of the New State.