Mónica Torres

SOCIAL CHANGE AND CONFIGURATIONS OF RHETORIC: SCHOOLING AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION-INCLUSION IN EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN CONTEMPORARY SPAIN

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, Spanish education experienced a full historical cycle closely related to the profound political change that the country experienced during that period of time. The 1970s witnessed the decline and defi nitive disappearance of the General Franco dictatorship. Immediately after his death in 1975 a process of political transition commenced that was complete but peaceful and based on the accord of the most relevant political parties and social groups. The fi rst fruit of this process was a new Constitution, which was approved by universal suffrage in 1978. This Constitution established a new political regime that is a parliamentary monarchy, similar to those of some other European countries. Accordingly, in 1986 Spain was admitted as a full member of the European Union. For the fi rst time in the history of the country, an ambitious project was undertaken to decentralize the national territory, which resulted in its division into autonomous communities with a signifi cant degree of self-governance (see Judt, 2006, 516–523, for a brief but effective historical narrative of the events of this period). To these and other political changes, one must also factor in a process of rapid and relatively successful modernization that had just begun in the late 1950s, after the most authoritarian years of the regime, in which Spain began a new era with its “economic stabilization plan” of 1959 supervised by the World Bank, and during the 1960s through the so-called Economic and Social Development Plans (created following the French model of “indicative” economic planning of the postwar era, and technocratically accomplished by a leading elite of high-level civil servants linked to the Opus Dei) (Balfour, 2000). With the advent of democracy after General Franco’s death, the modernization processes accelerated, after the signing of the so-called Social Pact of La Moncloa by the political parties and trade unions of workers and entrepreneurs, with signifi cant consequences for all aspects of the social life of the country. During the 1990s Spain succeeded in situating itself among the most developed countries of the world, experiencing excellent economic indicators and a signifi cant transformation of

From Centralism to Decentralization : The Recent Transformation of the Spanish Education System

The trend of decentralization has influenced the course of education in developed countries around the world. Even Spain, with its strong centralist traditions of educational governance, has witnessed significant transformations in education as a result of decentralization. Because of this profound shift from centralization to decentralization, Spanish education provides an illuminating case for understanding the contemporary process of decentralization. To understand this process, however, requires more than simply considering the structural changes within the contemporary Spanish educational system. It also requires examining how Spanish education has evolved and departed from many of its centralist