Being a teacher, despite Franco’s regime: ethnographic testimonies of an instance of school practice

Abstract

This article brings us closer to the ethnographic archives of the teacher Andreu Bosch Anglada. Once located, their subsequent analysis makes it possible for us to approach some of the practices developed by this teacher between 1939 and 1970 in the schools of Alaior and Ciutadella (Menorca, Balearic Islands). Our hypothesis is based on the idea that school practice is more conditioned by the motivation, training and pedagogical experience of each teacher than by the social and political situation of the moment. It is precisely from studies of ethnographic character, carried out on the basis of those materials that reflect everyday practice, that we can perceive best the difference between the regulations governing the running of the school and what really happens in the classroom. Through the collection of documents found out we will try to analyze the practice used by the teacher Andreu Bosch during Franco’s dictatorship, a fact that will allow us to illustrate the potential it has for the historical study of school files that teachers themselves have compiled, based on some of the testimonies that reflect their daily practice. As main conclusions of the study, it is pointed out that, despite the difficulties in locating them, these documentary sets, of a personal nature, are a testimony of great value to know both the teaching practices and some of the changes and things that remained the same which took place in the daily classroom activity.

Keywords: History of education, ethnographic archives, school practice, Franco’s regime, Balearic Islands, Menorca.