Los temas históricos conflictivos y su abordaje escolar: un ejemplo español

Abstract

This investigation analyses the way the “difficult times” in recent Spanish history have been dealt with in school textbooks and in the classrooms, establishing, on the one hand, the historiographic and didactic advances and, on the other, the present shortcomings and deficiencies of such approaches from the perspective of a really democratic and reconciliatory treatment. In summary, the representation of the period between 1931 and 1975 in history textbooks has changed in many ways, and often in positive ones. These changes took place over the last twenty-five years but accelerated during the past fifteen. However, the most problematic aspects—those linked, on the one hand, to violence and repression, especially during the civil war and the Franco period, and, on the other, to the legal process of reconciliation between Spaniards after the Francoist dictatorship—have been paid the least attention and introduced last, and only partially, in the history textbooks. This last is the aspect that we believe, because of its enormous importance, has been tackled in the least satisfactory way.

Keywords

• conflictive historic times
• history teaching and reconciliation
• textbooks
• history teaching