The Professional Selection Courses of the Second Spanish Republic in Cáceres: An Approach to the Sources for Their Study

Abstract

This work focuses on the study of a specific aspect of teacher training from a historical-educational perspective, which has to do with the Professional Selection Courses implemented during the Second Spanish Republic to allow an effective transition between different teacher training plans, that of 1914 and that of 1931. Specifically, a heuristic approach to this phenomenon is offered in the province of Cáceres, with the Escuela Normal for Teachers of the city as a reference center. This research presents as results the state of the art and the primary sources found for its study in the Archive of the Faculty of Teacher Training of the city of Cáceres (University of Extremadura). Therefore, an effort is made to clarify and categorize administrative data, files, minutes, preparation of tribunals, lists of teachers and subjects, etc. The discovery and cataloging of this type of archival documentation will allow us to analyze the feasibility of generating future research that analyzes the organizational and pedagogical development of the Cursillos, as well as the peculiarities that the teachers and students involved in the implementation of the reform had to assume. Furthermore, this work opens the possibility of interpreting the Courses not only as an emergency training mechanism, but also as a space for educational modernization, whose comparative study with other provinces could enrich our understanding of the tensions between innovation and tradition in Republican educational policy.