Anthropology and ethnography of education in Spain

Abstract

In this article we review recent developments in educational-anthropological and educational- ethnographic research in Spain. We take as our starting point the mid-2000s – a moment by which the anthropology of education in Spain had reached a certain degree of institutionalization but had also configured itself as a sub-field with an almost monographic focus on the experiences of ethnic and immigrant minorities in the formal educational system. Since then, the topics and theoretical frameworks used by Spanish educational anthropologists and ethnographers have expanded into different concerns. We trace this diversification, present its intellectual, geographical and institutional organization and focus on two trends: on one hand, a new set of anthropological studies of socialization and educational processes in a variety of non-school settings and across the life-span; on the other hand, the combination of participatory action research perspectives in educational-ethnographic studies of educational innovations.